Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

unmistakable zero-shaped hand gesture, similar to what José Mourinho used in Italy when he told Juventus: ‘You have zero titles’.
    In the 84th minute, Fernando Torres is replaced by the Italian, Andrea Dossena, who would still find time to score a fourth goal. The
Ultras Sur
took aim but this time the insults are overpowered by the Kop, which belts out the Torres Song full blast.
    ‘This is Anfield,’ said Fernando in front of the microphones, notebooks and television cameras. ‘A very difficult ground. It’s not just any team that wins here. The fans have given us a real lift.’ And, remembering the controversy of the past, when he played in the red-and-white stripes of Atlético, he went on to explain: ‘As a Liverpool player, I’m happy, but if we’ve also given enjoyment to the fans of Atlético, then so much the better.’

Chapter 29
A horse that needs to run
     
    Conversation with Juventus defender and Italy captain, Fabio Cannavaro
    Green lawns, white goals in the middle of the pitch, low-flying swallows and empty stands with seats marking out the words ‘Real Madrid’. In the background, an ever-expanding housing development and four new towers of glass and steel, which disappear into the low clouds and darkness of a leaden sky. Real’s training session has finished a short time ago. Behind the huge windows of the press room, on the second floor of the Ciudad Deportiva di Valdebebas sports complex (about 10 miles north of Madrid city centre) journalists are waiting patiently for the appearance, behind the microphones and in front of the red and black sponsor’s background, of the Argentinian, Gonzalo Higuaín.
    On the first floor, Fabio Cannavaro, in black leather bomber jacket, blue striped shirt and torn jeans is smiling – a smile that, for about three years, has also won over Madrid. ‘How are you?’ – ‘Well, thanks and you?’ With his piercing blue eyes, the street kid who was a ballboy at the Napoli team’s San Paolo stadium in Naples (in order to see at close hand his idol, Diego Maradona) has come a long way. After Naples, he went to Parma, Inter and Juventus and on into the Italian national side.
    Then, in 2006, in Germany, the biggest, most exciting football experience – the World Cup. And as captain of Italy, raising the trophy aloft in Berlin. Six months later came the European Footballer of the Year trophy (the
Ballon d’Or
) and then the FIFA World Player of the year – an honour in recognition of the defensive skills that only Franz Beckenbauer could previously claim. A prize that showed what is meant by tackling, anticipation, a sliding interception and maximum concentration in an area of the pitch where errors are costly. And in that World Cup summer of 2006, Cannavaro arrived at Real Madrid to don the Number 5 shirt (formerly of Zinédine Zidane) and went on to win two consecutive league titles and a Spanish Supercopa. Good memories of a city and a country, Spain, to which he is now saying farewell in order to return to Turin and Juventus – first as a player and then maybe as a director. These are the last days here in Valdebebas of the central defender, who, the day after the second leg of the knockout Champions League tie against Liverpool at Anfield, was not feeling too great.

The
Daily Mirror
writes that Torres, in the first chance of the match, goes round you as if you were ‘a Sunday league player, not one of the most decorated men in the game …’
     
    ‘Regardless of what the
Mirror
writes, it was a difficult match because they started superbly and we are a team in which, when we don’t play like a team, our errors stand out. And with those spaces, with those strikers, to defend well becomes impossible.’

With you, and above all with Pepe, Torres had quite a lot to smile about …
     
    ‘For Torres to play against Real Madrid was something special – a derby. But except in my first year at Madrid, when I was sent off for two yellow cards against him (I never did anything to him but he just started to scream), I never had any problems. He is a striker who takes it and gives it. I’ve given him some. That’s normal. The only thing I can say is that, in Spain, he had these theatrical habits. Fortunately, in England, he’s got rid of them. The English don’t accept that kind of thing.’

Is it difficult to mark Torres?
     
    ‘I’ve marked Fernando both in Spain, when he was playing with Atlético, and with the national team and also with