Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

minutes from time, the left-footed left-back, Alan Kennedy, made the winning strike – a goal that ‘Barney Rubble’ (the nickname given to him by the Kop, after the character in the TV cartoon series,
The Flintstones
), remembers it like this: ‘There was a throw-in and the Madrid players thought that Ray (Kennedy) would give it to Sammy Lee or to Dalglish. I started a run from behind. No one was expecting me. I chested the ball down and slipped into the penalty area. García Cortés came for the challenge but failed to clear. He was afraid of giving away a penalty and so didn’t touch me and I ended up in front of Augustín. He thought I was going to pass and opened himself up a bit. Because of that I decided to shoot close to the left-hand post.’ A perfect angle and it brought them their third European Cup in five years.
    Other times, other stories. That Liverpool side was made up of Clemence, Neal, Thompson, Hansen (Alan), Kennedy, Lee, McDermott, Souness, Kennedy (Ray), Dalglish and Johnson. The one that comes out on to the pitch in Madrid at 8.45pm on 25 February 2009, lines up as Reina, Aberloa, Carragher, Skrtel, Fabio Aurelio, Mascherano, Xabi Alonso, Benayoun, Riera, Kuyt and Torres. Gerrard does not even make the warm-up, going straight to the bench. The Bernabéu is not the pressure cooker that their captain has asked for but there is a lot of noise from the crowd, with constant whistles for the Reds. The Real Madrid fans and the
Ultras Sur
(the most radical and extreme supporters) pick on Torres because of his Atlético past. They can’t bear the fact that the player, according to a list compiled for
The Times
just twelve days before the Bernabéu game, is now one of the 50 Greatest Liverpool players of all time. On the pitch, however, the players are wary of him. This is what Raúl says when asked about Torres’ goal drought in the Bernabéu:
    ‘Since Torres went to Liverpool he’s got rid of the pressure he had at Atlético and is displaying all his qualities as a footballer. He feels very supported and he does what he knows best, which is to upset his opponents with his power and his goal-scoring instincts. He is one of the most formidable strikers in the world.’
    Torres responds to this flattery in the 20th minute, just when the Bernabéu crowd was shouting ‘
Arriba Madrid
’ in a bid to encourage their team not to be so timid and to go on the attack. Pepe Reina makes one of his trademark cannon-like clearances, Dirk Kuyt glances the ball further forward and El Niño runs onto it in typical style. Real’s defence, Cannavaro and Pepe, stay firm. Nevertheless, Fernando gets round the back of the Portuguese defender, ending up with just Iker Casillas to beat. He makes an angled shot but the keeper just gets a glove to it and deflects it. It was a good opportunity to break the jinx – and it proved to be the last. Torres had been playing with an injury since the end of the first minute – as Rafa Bénitez would explain later – and is quite clearly limping in pain from his left ankle. He comes off just before the half-hour and sits down on the turf, while the club physios check him over. Benítez comes over to assess the situation. Several minutes go by and, after bandaging the ankle, he puts his boot back on and returns to the pitch. But by then he’s like a loose buoy floating between the white lines. He doesn’t move off the ball, he can’t run to receive the passes from the midfield. He stays there, hoping for the chance of a loose ball resulting from some kind of error. It’s obvious to everyone that he’s injured. And yet at the beginning of the second half, he comes back on. When questioned later, Benítez explains that the doctors had assured him ‘it’s not a serious injury and he could continue’. In addition, Torres himself wants to play and asks Benítez if he can carry on. But he can’t play properly and starts getting annoyed – so much so that, in the 55th minute, after an argument with Pepe, he is booked. Six minutes later, with his ankle swollen, he gives in. He raises his hands to salute the Liverpool fans up in the third tier, which provokes insults from the south corner. Choruses of ‘
Hijo de puta, hijo de puta!
’ (‘son of a whore!’), echo round the stadium until Torres disappears into the dugout.
    He leaves the stadium 50 minutes later with a grim face and a brace round his ankle. The Liverpool striker, who should have been the key man of the