Whilst it can be hard to put into words exactly how Fernando Torres made me feel as a teenager growing up, I’ll do my best to describe his blistering best and do this great man justice. Rarely do we see a player take over the city of Liverpool; Torres did exactly that.
His armband proved he was a Red
Fernando Torres was one of those once-in-a-generation talents. From the second he started playing seriously in the youth team of Atletico Madrid, everyone would be watching his growth and progression with an eagle eye.
He lived and breathed Atletico. Born into supporting the Madrid team via his Grandfather, he likely wouldn’t be able to go home and avoid a good telling off had he not gave 100%.
Atletico were forever, and are still in the shadow of the great Real Madrid. Having a European juggernaut on your doorstep would cloud most things, so you have to be extra special to divert the world's attention from the Galacticos to anything else.
That’s what Torres was building towards. Turning more and more heads until everybody took notice. By the time he was 23 years old, he’d played over 200 times for Atletico. Absolutely preposterous numbers.
He was almost like he was part of the furniture at the Metropolitano, and he hadn’t even hit his prime yet.
The Chelsea cash machine had been sniffing around El Niño for a couple of years prior to his move to Liverpool. Atletico managed to fend them off, for the time being, it’s just a shame Liverpool weren’t able to follow suit a few years down the line.
Fernando Torres
Atletico Madrid v Real Betis | Denis Doyle/GettyImages
Soon after a few failed Chelsea bids, a picture surfaced in the papers and football magazines in 2007. Torres, the 22-year-old Atleti captain, was playing just another game in front of his faithful.
A journalist was lucky enough to snatch one of the most iconic Liverpool-related pictures of all time. His captain’s armband had come loose, revealing a message on the underside of the band.
“...’ll Never Walk Alone’.
The beginning of the armband message was partly covered, but this sent the Liverpool fans into raptures, and we hadn’t even contacted him yet. Journalists the world over took it and ran with it.
That summer, Torres would join Liverpool for £20 million, but is that so surprising? He’d grown up next to Real Madrid, who throw money at every problem they have. Is it such a shock that he’d turn Chelsea down and join us?
He’d grown up to support and perform for the underdog, so I guess we all have his Grandfather to thank for that.
The Liverpool Love Affair
The affection and love were immediate. At that time in our history, we just didn’t attract the big players. There had been times we’d shown interest, but then your Manchester United's, Chelsea’s or Arsenals would swoop in and leave us crestfallen.
We’d signed Fernando Torres, and some of us had to pinch ourselves. The excitement and the thrill around the signing is one I hadn’t really experienced as a Liverpool fan.
At a time when we needed someone to finish the endless chances Steven Gerrard would create, we might have just found him.
Whenever you ask a Liverpool fan to tell you their favourite Fernando Torres moment, he’s one of the few players in a red shirt that would get multiple different answers. Yes, he scored goal after goal after goal, but he kicked off something special at Liverpool.
We’ve been quite lucky with our recruitment from this point, and Torres falls into the bracket of a difference maker. One of the few players in recent times who, when they play, it’s expected that they’ll outshine everyone.
Torres, Suarez, Coutinho, Salah.
They’re all players who came one after another and filled the boots adequately of their predecessor. Torres was the catalyst. The standard setter for anyone else lucky enough to be given talisman status.
The following statement is true for all 4 of the above. They’d do things on the pitch that you just couldn’t explain, but then we almost get used to them. Whilst we never took them for granted, I, for one, never fully felt their impact until they left.
Perhaps I should have been more appreciative whilst they were here, but that’s the Liverpool standard, and these types of players never disappointed.
Fernando Torres
Liverpool v Benfica - UEFA Europa League | John Cocks/GettyImages
So when I’m asked, ‘what's you favourite Torres moment?’ You could say Arsenal in the Champions League quarterfinal at Anfield. You could say his very first goal for Liverpool was against Chelsea. You could say his over-the-shoulder, back-to-goal volley v Blackburn.
For me, it's the tone he set and the standard he forced on himself and anyone else who came there after. That was Fernando Torres’ finest moment.
The Heartbreak
Like all good love affairs, there comes a time when it must come to an end. Being a young man at the time, I hadn’t warmed to a player so much and then to have that trust broken. Liverpool fans the world over went through the 5 stages of grief.
Initially, we denied it. How could he leave, but not only that, how could he join our league rivals, Chelsea? It’s almost like an unwritten rule that if you leave Liverpool, you go abroad. I guess Torres never got that memo.
Fernando Torres, Diego Contento
FC Bayern Muenchen v Chelsea FC - UEFA Champions League Final | Laurence Griffiths/GettyImages
After the denial came anger. Furious Reds would curse his name on internet forums (this was well before Twitter took over).
We’d wrongly discredit what he brought to the club in a bid to make ourselves feel better. I definitely said at one point, ‘Andy Carroll is way more dangerous anyway’. That’s the pain talking.
Then came the depression. The crushing realisation that it won’t be the same again. We won’t see the Torres-Gerrard partnership flourish for another season. The happy couple of Merseyside have broken up, and we’re feeling it just as much as he is.
Then comes bargaining. Repeatedly pulling up Andy Carroll’s stats and comparing them with El Niño’s. Bragging that we’ve received an English transfer record fee and money can paper over the cracks.
We did, however, bring in Luis Suarez with the Torres money, so maybe the bargaining stage wasn’t too bad at all.
Then, finally, acceptance. The acceptance one was strange but also quite sweet. Acceptance for me came in realizing that he’d made the wrong decision, but I wasn’t even happy about it.
In the four seasons he spent at Chelsea, he found the net 20 times. The Suarez four seasons at Liverpool, 69 times. Proof that the grass is not always greener.
I still understand why he left, though. He didn’t win a trophy at Liverpool, in a time when Chelsea had won 2 FA Cups, a League Cup and the Premier League. He went on to 4 trophies with Chelsea, but as a bit-part player.
Fernando Torres
Netherlands v Spain: 2010 FIFA World Cup Final | Alex Livesey - FIFA/GettyImages
We’ve seen it happen before, too. We build up these amazing players, and they leave Anfield, and it’s not quite the same. Coutinho has gone on record saying he shouldn't have left. Trent isn’t exactly lighting up La Liga, but there is one thing that doesn’t change.
The ever-present is the feeling these types of players gave us in a Liverpool shirt. Whatever came before or after that spell is almost irrelevant. We got to savor their talents and share memories of their greatness together.
This article came about through having World Cup fever, and as an Englishman, that fever turns quickly into despair around the 1st week of July.
What better way to prep for the impending World Cup pain than to revisit an extremely painful memory in my Liverpool fandom?
So soak in the event, engage in the spectacle, because we only get this unique kind of pain and sorrow once every four years.
Liverpool Lore will return next Thursday with another look back.
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