Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

the Atlético kit man and had followed Torres’ progress step-by-step through the junior ranks. The news on
Cadena Ser
is like a bomb going off. It turns out that on 15 March 2001, the Madrid club had received 400 million pesetas (about £2 million), which, including VAT, became 464 million, from Valencia Football Club to deal with a liquidity problem – and the Atlético directors had put up the rights of their ‘golden boy’ as guarantee. If they didn’t pay the debt within the time stipulated (by 25 June), then Fernando Torres would become a Valencia player on 1 July. It was an operation that provoked a huge row, stirred up the anger of the fans and ended up being the subject of a legal investigation. Miguel Ángel Gil, director general of Atlético Madrid, maintained that it was ‘a usual thing between clubs, to use players’ transfers to disguise loans’. The professional league said that it had never seen anything like it before. Torres denied having signed a contract which obliged him to leave and denied absolutely having any preferred option for that club. His representatives talked of compensation of 2,600 million pesetas (about £13 million) if Atlético did not pay up and Torres was forced to leave for Valencia. It wasn’t the case. The debt was paid off. El Niño’s adventure in Atlético Madrid continued.

Chapter 12
Yogurt
     
    Conversation with former Atlético de Madrid striker, Francisco Miguel Narváez Machón, better known as ‘Kiko’
    A baseball cap above his black curly hair, wearing a leather jacket, coloured jersey and a weary look is how Kiko appears in the hotel bar at Madrid’s
Ciudad de la Imagen
. He has just emerged, battle-scarred and breathless, from a game of indoor football, during which he has scored the equaliser, but which has left him completely drained
.
In little more than an hour, he will be on television commentating for the Spanish channel,
Sexta
, on the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup) tie between Atlético Bilbao and Sevilla (Seville).
    Born in Jerez de la Frontera, Andalusia and now aged 37, Kiko has a long career behind him. After three years in the Cadiz team and a gold medal with the Spanish national side at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he became the figurehead player at Atlético Madrid. Chalking up eight seasons (from 1993 to 2001), 278 appearances and 64 goals, he played a key role in the squad, which, with the Serbian ex-Luton Town (1980–84) player Radomir Antic as manager, captured a league and cup double in the 1995–96 season – the last silverware won by the club.
    Tall (1.89m/6ft 2ins) and rangy, he was in a class of his own, a striker but not in the classic sense of the word. He played behind the main striker, combining great imagination and vision with decisive assists and scoring many goals of his own. He was Fernando Torres’ hero.
    Kiko takes a long drink of water to rehydrate himself before recalling the end of May 2001 – the debut of El Niño.
    ‘The team was in the Second Division and the situation wasn’t good. Results were mixed and we weren’t playing well. To sum it up, we had a lot of problems. At the beginning of the season, we’d been hovering above the relegation zone and getting promotion was looking unlikely. To raise the fans’ hopes, they decided to give a debut to El Niño, a true
atlético
, someone with whom the fans could identify. It was a marketing exercise, something which would divert the public’s attention from the day-to-day happenings at the club.’

And how did the dressing room view him?
     
    ‘We thought we’d have to have some kind of arrangement with a children’s nursery. What was a kid of seventeen doing in a team of experienced professionals? And above all, we were suddenly being asked to look after this youngster when we were right in the middle of our final, crucial matches. I remember the first day he introduced himself to me in the dressing room. He was thin, freckled, with an extremely slight build and very shy. As he went to shake my hand, he was very emotional. I was the team captain and his idol.’

Why was that?
     
    ‘I was tall, like him and, like him a forward, although Fernando is more powerful and more direct. I played in a different style. I’d won the Cup and League title just when a young boy begins to idolise footballers and to admire a player who plays in his position. I was a committed
atlético
, like him. It’s normal if you come from the junior team to have someone as