Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

Uncle Bruno was the most enthusiastic footballing family member and he worked hard to teach them the basics of the game.
    And still in Galicia, several years later, during summer holidays on the beach at Estorde, he would spend his days playing never-ending matches. ‘Mini-World Cups’ with everyone against each other. He gets stronger. ‘He was fast, agile, versatile, with very sharp changes of pace. You didn’t see great displays of quality but strength and power, yes. When he played, he had a special touch and in the sand he ran like a madman,’ remembers Ramón Marcote.
    At five years old, he enters his first team, Parque (Park) 84. Parque is the name of the neighbourhood and 84 the year of birth for the boys playing in the team. The shirt is red and the event is the footballing marathon that takes place at the Polideportivo (sports centre) in Fuenlabrada. It is a local trophy but a real occasion for any child. Amongst the spectators are parents, friends, colleagues and schoolmates. No one is bothered that the matches take the form of piles of kids – around fifteen to twenty – all kicking the ball in whatever way they could. They have a good time and they get to feel like real soccer stars and no one minds that the team has been put together just for the event. Two days later and they all go back to playing how they’d always played.
    That is, until the people from Cafetería Mario in Holanda Street decide to organise a team that will be called Mario’s Holanda.
    ‘An adult team was already in existence when we decided to create one for the youngsters. At that time in Fuenlabrada, there were a lot of young parents with lads who were really into sport. These families were a bit concerned about street crime, drug-taking and their kids getting into bad company, so we tried to get them together and keep them busy with football,’ recalls Juan Gómez, now aged 55, one of the founders of that team and the coach for Torres and his mates. Today he works in the Real Casa de la Moneda (the Royal Mint).
    One Friday afternoon, in the Fuenlabrada sports shop called Camacho, just 100 metres from where Fernando used to live, the ex-trainer has time to sit down with his son, Alexis, the captain of Mario’s Holanda, and winger Javier Camacho, amongst the rackets, trainers, balls, bathing costumes and shirts of Real Madrid, Atlético, the Spanish national team and Liverpool. He remembers the time when the Reds’ Number 9 used to run around on hard cement surfaces.
    ‘They were a pretty good group of kids,’ says Juan. ‘We saw Fernando play and we thought this lad ought to be in our team. Why? Because at eight years old he had the same skills that he has now – speed and technique. Training didn’t bother him but, more importantly, he never got tired of learning. I had to teach him everything from the throw-in to what it means to play in a team. We had to tell him that football is a game and that was how he should approach it. But right from that moment, I was convinced that Fernando would go far. I always said that to his father, a delightful person – like his brother and the rest of the family. They didn’t believe me. Once, after a game in which he scored eight goals, I said it again and José was almost in tears. But I was absolutely sure.’
    As you look at the photo of the Mario’s Holanda team for the 1992–93 season, Javier Camacho, the son of the shop owner, is standing to the right of Fernando. He has a serious expression with his mouth half-open in the team’s green, white and black shirt, and is looking directly at the camera. Sixteen years later, apart from a slight beard, Javier hasn’t changed much. Nor has Fernando. El Niño’s birthday is in March and his in July. Javier is studying in Madrid to be a surveyor but still loves playing football for the fun of it, for the team of La Moraleja De Enmedio, a village about 18 miles from Madrid, in the Segunda Regional (Second Regional) division (the leagues below the Spanish third division). And like Torres, he is a striker. He remembers well that photo, taken all those years ago at the Colegio Publico Andrés Manjón school. Without hesitation, from left to right, he reels off the names of his then team-mates:
    ‘Juan the coach, Rubén the goalkeeper, Alexis, Fernando and I, then the really tall one in the green tracksuit, Israel – the brother of Fernando who always came to watch us and sometimes, when Juan Gómez wasn’t there, would act