Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

looks an easy downhill ride from here. Torres, who has scored his first goal in a World Cup final, insists: ‘We are playing well. We’re going step-by-step. We’re going to get people talking. But we aren’t the favourites – the favourites are those who’ve already won a World Cup and those who have more experience than us. They are the ones under pressure. Us, no. Because Spain hasn’t won a World Cup, nor been in a final.’
    Five days later it’s Tunisia. Losing by a goal, Spain fight back. Against the rain and the North Africans’ defence, Torres is decisive. He scores twice, to make it 2-1 and then a third to make sure. The first is typical Torres – an inviting long ball from Cesc and off he goes running, beating the Tunisian defenders on pace, then tricking the keeper to score before celebrating like an archer in homage to his former Atlético team-mate and idol, Kiko. The second is a cleanly executed penalty. He’s brought down while about to fire in a header. He converts the spot-kick with a powerful shot. The keeper guesses correctly but the ball flashes between arm and leg. Torres is top-scorer for the tournament with three goals and Spain is through to the last sixteen.
    But waiting there on 27 June is the France of Zinedine Zidane. The ex-Real Madrid player has already announced his retirement from football at the end of the World Cup. Three days before the game, Spanish sport daily,
Marca
, decides to stoke up the prematch atmosphere by running a front page headline: ‘We are going to retire Zidane’. An attempt at humour that doesn’t please the French captain, prompting him to comment: ‘There’s no need to talk before the match. It’s a pity. There are people who talk who would be better off keeping quiet, like
Marca
. What they’ve written has hurt me.’
    Fernando Torres doesn’t take the same line as
Marca
and sends this message: ‘It’s important to see Zidane in this World Cup. We will try to beat them but I hope he doesn’t retire and that we enjoy having him around for a lot longer and we hope it isn’t his last match.’ But even he is confident of the final result: ‘France is a great team,’ he says, ‘but we believe in our football and in victory.’ Spain reaching the last sixteen is one of the pleasant surprises of the competition. The players are young (24 is the average age compared with 29 for France), they have a squad bursting with upcoming talent playing abroad (Cesc Fabregas for example), they’re hungry for victory and they want to surprise. They know how to play the ball and they never want to give up. All in all, they get so much out of playing that they have proudly come to symbolise the New Spain, which has achieved the top spots in Europe and across the world. From gastronomy (Ferran Adriá), sport (Fernando Alonso, Rafa Nadal), art (Miquel Barceló) and architecture (Santiago Calatrava). A country that doesn’t feel itself inferior to anyone and a new footballing generation that doesn’t carry the weight on its shoulders of endless failures. It can dream of overcoming its World Cup quarter-final taboo, always seen as an insurmountable obstacle.
    The favourites by miles. They all say it. Even Spanish Prime Minister Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is convinced that against the French his fellow-countrymen will do it. The morning of the match, he calls Luis Aragonés to tell him: ‘You have my support and my confidence.’ An awful lot of confidence because on the other side is a France that is sad and depressed. They are a group of stars on the wane, so much so that someone has compared them to the Rolling Stones. They qualified as the second team in Group G (two draws and a victory), as a divided squad, overwhelmed with doubts and criticism. A group that found it difficult to get to Germany and continues down the same road. One recognises that they have skill and much experience but opposite the youthful attractions of Torres and his team-mates, these qualities don’t count for much. More or less everyone thinks like this in Spain.
    It’s a pity that things don’t turn out differently. Going a goal up via a David Villa penalty won’t help them at all. Franck Ribéry, former Arsenal player Patrick Viera and Zidane – that old player destined for early retirement – will bury the Spanish dream. Once more they leave empty-handed. And there is even someone who reports that the defeat – or the crucial second French goal scored with a header from