Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

on with playing football, we will win.’ In their Durham base the day before the match, they follow a similar routine to that of previous days, apart from the presence of the senior national team coach, José Antonio Camacho. Then lunch, siesta, homework with a private teacher and, before going to bed, videos for everyone. The France-England game makes the youngsters realise that
Les Bleus
are a tough, physical, tactical and technical outfit. The game proves it. In the second minute, in front of the French keeper, Torres has a good chance but the shot goes just outside the left post. It is an open match and even if the Spanish manage at times to impose their game during the second half, it is the French pair, Le Tallec and Sinama, who get closest to scoring. But just when the 20,000-strong crowd inside the Stadium of Light are almost resigned to the prospect of extra-time, English referee Andrew D’Urso blows his whistle and awards a penalty following a tackle in the area by France’s Colombo. The decision is hotly contested by the French players but a spot-kick it is.
    It is minute 36 of the second half with just four more remaining (junior matches are 80 minutes). Fernando Torres moves towards the penalty area. He has already taken two from the spot in this tournament and converted them both. No one has any doubts about how he is going to hit it – hard and towards the left post, like the other two. There is no reason to change, given that the other two have been so successful. He takes a short run-up and shoots hard. Keeper Chaigneau guesses right but the angle of the shot is too much and he can’t reach it. It is the winning goal and the Atlético player cries out like a man obsessed, lifting his shirt to reveal a message to Andrés Iniesta and thereby keep the promise he made to dedicate his goal to his injured team-mate. Then the youngsters’ exuberant celebrations – first in the Stadium of Light and then, that evening, at the Newcastle ground, St James’ Park, where the gala dinner is being held with officials from UEFA, the Spanish Football Federation and their opponents. From shorts to jacket and tie, handshakes, friendly chat, dancing, polite laughter and toasts with Coca-Cola. It’s all done very seriously ‘because then,’ explained one of the team, ‘they cannot say that we don’t know how to behave ourselves in society.’ The partying relocates in the early morning to Durham, the team base. The Under-16s have, for once, got permission to stay out until the small hours. It is, after all, their big day and the technical staff say they deserve it. As indeed they deserve the full attention of the media, which, during the previous week, has discovered what it was already describing as ‘the Torres Generation’. The reason is quickly apparent: Fernando is the slayer of France with seven goals, the top goalscorer and the best player of the tournament. It’s Fernando who comes to symbolise a national side made up of Iniesta, Gavilán, Melli and Diego León.
    This is a generation the commentators hope will continue in the same vein, will make the senior national side and win those trophies that have eluded them so long. Meanwhile, the stories of who these seventeen-year-olds are, and where they come from – especially Torres – are being uncovered. The first background articles appear in the press on the lad from Fuenlabrada, whose physique and strength someone compares to a sabre, with others recalling idol, Marco Van Basten, his favourite singers (Andrés Calamaro) and films (Roberto Benigni’s
La Vita è Bella
).
    A little more than a year later, the Torres Generation will repeat the celebrations in Norway. In-between, there was the black hole of the Under-17 World Cup, which took place in September 2001 in Trinidad & Tobago. Spain arrived, fresh from their European triumph, but two bad defeats against Burkina Faso (0-1) and Argentina (2-4) left them in third place in their group and they did not make the quarter-finals. Fernando got just one goal – in the first half of the match against Oman. But he came back with a vengeance in July in the second leg of the Under-19 Euro qualifying tie against Macedonia. He scored two goals to qualify the side for the finals in Norway from 21–27 July 2002.
    José Camacho, the manager of the senior national side, decided to quit after Spain’s exit from the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan (at the hands of joint host South Korea, managed by