Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

Parliament. Diego Alonso climbs the statue and shouts ‘Atléti
, volvemos a primera.
’ (‘Atléti, we’re coming back to the first division.’)
    Fernando Torres, in jean jacket and red-and-white scarf, is grinning from ear-to-ear. Finally, a real pleasure. Because even if lots of people that night can be seen wearing shirts with his name on, it hasn’t all been good during his second year with the senior team. Far from it.
    At the beginning of the season, at just seventeen years of age, ‘they made me into an idol and now they are trying to knock down the tower that they created. The manager told me: “The higher they put you, the harder you fall.” That’s to say, try to learn to be like one of the others,’ he confesses in an interview and adds: ‘In any case, I’ve been at a much lower level than I thought, I’ve not had the season that I was hoping for. I’ve encountered more difficulties than I thought I would.’
    What difficulties has the young promise of Spanish football encountered? A lot, beginning with the manager. Luis Aragonés, an Atlético midfielder in the 1960s and 70s with 123 goals to his name, a legend to the fans, has returned for the fifth time as manager to take the team back to the first division. But the
Sabio de Hortaleza
(Wise Man of Hortaleza), as they call him, doesn’t have much faith in the youngster. As often as not, he sends him directly to the stand or leaves him for entire matches to warm the substitutes’ bench. On the rare occasions he does start a match, he is substituted without fail. Changes that drive El Niño crazy even if, after thinking things over, he ends up admitting the gruff manager was right. The Wise Man corrects him continuously: ‘Torres, not like that!’ ‘Torres, do it well, not beautifully, well!’ Torres this, Torres that. He takes him off the pitch to put on a defender or the Uruguayan, Diego Alonso, an honest worker of the ball. With the lad from Fuenlabrada, he uses all the old football conventions. Or to be more exact, the brilliant, celebrated youngster must be treated harshly – he needs to be taught how to behave on the pitch and in the dressing room. He must be the first to arrive and the last to leave, to talk little and listen a lot, to be humble, he must never get cocky, he must respect his team-mates and not dare to contradict the gaffer. Training – or rather, commandments – that years later Torres will consider valuable, but at seventeen, leave him baffled.
    The continuous put-downs and the constant substitutions to a competitive and fiercely proud young man like Fernando, do him damage. And there’s also the fact that Luis cannot stomach the youngster’s media exposure. The more they talk about him in the press, the less he plays. A popularity that even attracts the jealousy of his team-mates, who, in some cases, are twelve years older than him, and who find this callow youth hogging the headlines hard to handle. So much fame also brings with it a special attention on the part of opposing defenders. ‘I can confirm that if they think you are a “name”, it’s worse. You have to suffer much more marking,’ comments Torres.
    The truth is that, on many occasions, in order to respect the famous conventions of football, his rivals gave him a rough time. As do the press. Many had given him their backing and feel betrayed by a performance that is not up to expectations. They talk of the crisis in his second year, of how the Under-17 World Cup at the beginning of the season didn’t allow him to start the league campaign on a good footing, pointing to his goal tally (only six) as evidence of this.
    The only thing in his defence: he plays some really tremendous games. But they don’t count for much, seeing that even he comes to doubt the faith placed in him. Fernando’s reply, or rather revenge, comes first with the victory in the Under-19 European championship in Norway and then in the first division.
    He makes his top-flight debut on 1 September 2002 in the Camp Nou against Louis Van Gaal’s Barcelona. Ten months after he’s scored thirteen goals in the championship and one in the Copa del Rey. He has become the star of the side – one that everyone expects to see shining. He has assumed big responsibilities and has become, without doubt, one of the best in the team. On two occasions he brought the entire Vicente Calderón stadium to its feet.
    On 12 January 2003, against Deportivo La Coruña, he creates two