Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

football the right way, they are patient with you. In my day we were a solid group of seven or eight very, very good players and we had the support, like this group have, of the supporters. But when things aren’t going well, we were all in it together. This group of players understand that but I don’t think they’ve got six or seven very good players. They’ve got two very, very special players and another three or four that are good players but not special players.’

As a manager and former captain of Liverpool, what’s your technical judgement of Fernando Torres?
     
    ‘He’s an exceptional talent. He’s explosive. I think he’s like all the top strikers. He can be having a quiet game but if you’re playing against him you’re always aware that you can keep him quiet for 89 minutes and in that 90th minute he can kill you. His pace is his obvious attribute. But as well as that, he is a good finisher, he’s brave and he works hard.’

What is his contribution to Liverpool?
     
    ‘It’s enormous. There are the two very obvious threats of him and Gerrard. Gerrard’s not a midfield player, he’s like a central striker. And I believe those two strikers are the best out there. For me, Steven Gerrard is not a midfield player. He’s behind Torres. Torres can make the little, quick runs in behind defenders and Gerrard will find him. Those two are the best front two out there today.’

When Liverpool and Rafa Benítez chose Fernando Torres, many commentators said it was a risk for the amount of money they paid. How then, did he score 33 goals in his first season? This was explosive and a revelation, no?
     
    He was young and he’d never played outside Spain before, so there was always an element of risk. I think that, in his first season, he very quickly understood that he was playing for a special football club and the relationship between the players and the supporters is a special one. But I reckon you can analyse it and analyse it but he’s just a very, very good footballer and he felt at home immediately when he went to Liverpool because Liverpool supporters appreciate players who give 100 per cent, who score goals. There’s no acting with him, he’s not throwing himself to the ground, he’s not looking for fouls in the box all the time. He is a Liverpool player and I believe that very quickly he won the hearts of the Liverpool supporters.

It isn’t easy to enter into the history and spirit of a club, particularly a club like Liverpool. How did he manage to do this so quickly?
     
    ‘Because he’s good! All clubs like a star in the team, a goal-scorer. He’s following on from people like Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen. They were all great goalscorers. He’s built up their hopes. He’s now their new hero and I always think that getting off to a good start helped him. But I come back to him being young, when he arrived nobody really knowing him and everybody took to him immediately, all the supporters liked him immediately and he would have realised that, they would have got that message across to him and from that point on the Kop was won over, he feels loved and the rest was history.’

And you met him, in the programme that Michael Robinson made last year. What was your impression of him?
     
    ‘He seems a very modest, humble young lad.’

He doesn’t speak a lot but he knows how to play …
     
    ‘Exactly, he does his talking on the pitch. When I met him, that time, he was very respectful. He’s the sort of boy you knew you’d be happy if your daughter brought home. During the two hours that I spent with him, that was the image I got from him.’

How do you see Torres’ future at Liverpool?
     
    ‘I think he’ll be happy to stay there as long as they want him because he feels loved by the crowd and I think the only way he’d leave Liverpool would be if Liverpool dropped out of the Champions League and then they couldn’t afford to keep him. But I think that as long as Liverpool play in the Champions League, he will stay there. The fans would not allow the board of directors to sell him.

What for you are Torres’ best moments, best goal or best moves during his two years at Liverpool?
     
    ‘I think he’s scored some fantastic goals but beating Manchester United so convincingly at Old Trafford, I can never remember that happening before. I think his goal set them on the way to win that game – it would have to be that one because it meant so much to every