Torres (14 page)

Conversation with former Liverpool player and manager, Kenny Dalglish

He hasn’t lost his Scottish accent. It’s hard and dry, while at the same time, takes on a brusque tone. Apart from that, ‘The King’ or ‘The Legend’ as everyone calls him, is a normal person – pleasant, informal, very gracious and a bit shy. He’s not a great one for talking but when he does, it’s on an informed, friendly and helpful basis. He shuns high-sounding words and concepts and prefers to call a spade a spade to explain how he sees things. And at the time of writing, it has been announced that he is returning to be a part of Rafa Benítez’s technical team in an advisory capacity, developing young players and sporting reports. News which all of Anfield would welcome with enormous pleasure. Because Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish, who was 58 in March and born in Dalmarnock, Glasgow, is top of the list of 100 Players Who Shook The Kop. Between 1977 and 1991, with the Reds, he won the unimaginable as both player and player-manager. He scored a fantastic 173 goals (added to the 112 he scored between 1969 and 1977 wearing the green and white of Celtic).

He was also witness to the most tragic moments of modern football: on 29 May 1985 the final against the Juventus of Michel Platini, with 39 bodies on the field of play, and on 15 April 1989, the Hillsborough disaster, with its burden
of 96 dead. He has brought excitement to crowds across Europe. Apart from Liverpool, he has managed Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United and Celtic. But he maintains that he has never felt himself to be a legend and that it’s others who create legends. He has similar biographical details to Fernando. As a small boy at school, he began playing in goal, he was also a striker, his sign of the Zodiac is also Pisces, and he was also the Reds’ most expensive signing. But for King Kenny, all this is just coincidence. What is certain is that he gave his blessing to Torres immediately after his second hat-trick. ‘This boy,’ he said, ‘is the best buy that any club in Europe has made this season.’

10 June 2008

A striker is selfish by definition. He only sees the space marked out by two posts, eight feet high and an 8-yard crossbar. He doesn’t look around him, he doesn’t look for the unmarked team-mate. He doesn’t have time because he’s looking for the goal. His only thought is to get the ball over that goddamned white line. In whatever way possible. He only thinks of scoring. And his skill is what everyone – manager, team-mates, fans and commentators – wants from him. It’s his obsession because he knows that whatever marvels he’s able to perform on the pitch, however many opponents he can get past, however many miles he runs, however much work he does for the team, in the end he’ll be judged on the number of goals scored. And he’ll leave the pitch with a bad taste in his mouth if he hasn’t put away at least one.

But, occasionally, he understands that rules get broken, that the Number 9 looks up and sees a friendly shirt he can trust and instead of finishing off a move, instead of being selfish, he chooses to be generous or, better still, takes the correct and easiest option, the most direct route to goal, the action that benefits the side and makes all the team into winners.

And this is what he understands in the 20th minute of Spain’s debut in Euro 2008 as Luis Aragonés’ team take on
the Russia of Guus Hiddink in Innsbruck’s Neu Tivoli stadium in Austria. A long ball and Fernando Torres uses his pace to unsettle Kolodin. The Russian defender no longer knows what to do, loses his head, is not able to deal with the red lightning at his side and gives the ball away to El Niño. With some metres still to run, goalkeeper Akinfeez comes out of his goal and throws himself to the ground but doesn’t get to the ball. Fernando sees that David Villa, the Valencia striker and his international team-mate, has been following the play. A textbook cut-back and there’s nothing more that Spain’s Number 7 has to do other than put the ball into an empty goal. And then the celebration. The two strikers embrace, Villa beckons to Torres, they end up on the ground while their team-mates arrive and pile on top. So much celebration in fact that Villa injures the index finger on his right hand, a hairline crack that puts his participation in the following match in doubt.

Freeze frame: the ball, fired in by Villa, still hasn’t hit the back of the net, two disorientated Russian defenders watch the action while El Niño is already smiling. Happy with what he’s done. The rapport between the two is repeated a little later but Villa can’t beat the opposing keeper – the shot is too forced because of tight marking. And it doesn’t end there. On 44 minutes, Villa latches onto a magnificent through-ball from Iniesta to make it 2-0. When ‘El Guaje’ (‘The Kid’, or ‘El Niño’ in the language of Villa’s native Asturias) scores the third of his hat-trick, the other
Niño
is no longer on the field. The manager has taken him off in the 54th minute to send on a midfielder, Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas. It’s a substitution the Number 9 doesn’t like at all and which generates a long drawn-out debate. But there is a gesture from Villa to remember – after scoring the third goal of his hat-trick, he runs towards the bench to embrace Torres and dedicates the goal to him.

‘I embraced Fernando because people are talking a lot about him, that he’s not feeling good, that he doesn’t feel a part of things, that it’s difficult for him. I dedicated it to him because I scored but it was Torres who found the way in. I took all the praise for finishing off the moves but the first two goals were only possible through his help. In the first, the pass was his and in the second he opened up the spaces so that Iniesta could make the final pass. He’s had a really important game. He did great work – all the “dirty work”, that allowed me to do the beautiful bit. I’ve benefited from him and wanted to thank him for it. I wanted to dedicate it to him so that he would be happy,’ said David Villa at the time. A demonstration of friendship that put an end to a long month of controversy.

Voices in the dressing room were saying that the two were incompatible, they didn’t understand each other, they weren’t talking and they were constantly in competition with each other. What’s more, many were putting forward the following theory: if Torres is playing, Villa is on the bench and vice versa. But Innsbruck proved the opposite. ‘In the end, we finished up playing together,’ added Villa, ‘and I have to say that, with him, I felt very good. He’s an exceptional footballer, who can drop to the wing and who works hard for whoever plays alongside him. He’s wonderful.’

The match finishes 4-1 with a final headed goal from Fabregas but there’s no doubting that the hero of the game is El Guaje. A quick glance at the Spanish press headlines confirms it. ‘Illa Illa Illa ¡Villa Maravilla!’ (Marvellous Villa) is the front page headline of
Marca
, the Madrid sport daily. ‘Villa, the Number 7 of Spain’, shouts
ABC
, while
El Mundo
booms
‘
Lethal Villa, Lethal Spain’. The last Spaniard to score three goals in the finals of a European Championship was Michel.

Next up was Sweden. Villa has already caught up with Alfonso at the top of the table of Spanish goalscorers in European championship finals. As is to be expected, there is much praise for the lad who comes from the Asturias region of Spain and who grew up in a family of miners. For Torres, the critics are also positive. They say that he’s been rapid, lively, dangerous, demonstrated his class and formed a deadly partnership with Villa. He’s not been seen very much, almost a spectator when the national side was playing the short passing game, but decisive on the counter-attack when he had space to run, like he does at Liverpool. A pity, they say, that he’s on the pitch so little.

‘Torres has come from a long, hard season and he is very important for us. I had to take him off to give strength to the midfield,’ explains Aragonés at the end of the match. He minimises the fact that the Number 9 hadn’t scored: ‘The next day Torres could put away three goals just like Villa.’

What’s certain is that after the first match and the first overwhelming success against a rival that, on paper, seemed a hard nut to crack, the euphoria in Spain is widespread. And it’s also important to point out that this is the seventh consecutive victory for Aragonés’ men in a run of seventeen matches without defeat. But nobody trusts first impressions. Starting with Fernando: ‘We’ve played at a good pace and we’ve been lucky. It’s very important to start like this but we haven’t done anything. Don’t forget what happened to us in the Germany World Cup.’ Yes, Torres knows the failures of the national side all too well, having been a regular participant in recent years. Against Russia he celebrated a Golden Wedding with the side. A round figure of 50 matches and fourteen goals scored (three penalties), the numbers of a story that begins on 6 September 2003 at Guimares in Portugal.

He’s called up for the first time with the senior side by Iñaki Sáez, already his mentor from the junior teams. ‘He was the first that I called out of all those lads that I’d known and trained in the Under-16s and Under-19s. A fantastic group that brought us a lot of pleasure. Fernando was the most ready, physically, and he already had a lot of experience – two years in the first team at Atlético. His qualities? A speed and movement bonus, plus a lot of goals. He also had some weak spots to clear up, like receiving the ball with his back to the defender, one-on-ones with the keeper, coordination. But I had to put him on, I had to put on the best,’ remembers Iñaki with pleasure.

For Fernando it’s a dream that is becoming reality. For some time, there’d been talk about his possible call-up but the gaffer hadn’t wanted to give in to those temptations. This time things seem to be different, so during the week before the announcement of the squad for the friendly against Portugal, the Atlético Number 9 is beside himself with excitement. He wants to be part of the ‘club’, to see the national team from the inside, the atmosphere within the group, the training sessions, the prematch preparations. He wants to play with the ‘grown-ups’, and he is fed up of being the lad destined for the Under-21s. He feels that this is the moment. The anticipation is intermittent until the great day finally arrives. He’s in a car with a friend when he learns the good news on the radio. Amongst the 22, his name is included. It’s the moment he’s been anticipating ‘for a long time. Since last season, when I was dreaming so much about being able to join the side,’ he declares in an interview. ‘It’s not that you expect it but it’s more when everyone talks about the same thing, you begin to get worked up about it. But I wasn’t getting down. I knew that one day it would have to be. With each list the debate began but I was apart from all that. I said that I wasn’t in a hurry, that
it wasn’t a priority. I never understood all that expectation. They wanted to see me in the national side. Now it’s up to me to show they weren’t mistaken.’

It’s up to him to show them he is at the same level of the greats of Spain – the Raúls, the Valeróns, the Tristáns. He knows that they are putting him under the spotlight but he’s used to it. At Atlético he is the first to be praised and the first to be subjected to scrutiny. The national side, however, is going through a bad phase. During qualification for Euro 2004, Spain suffers two bad setbacks against Greece and Northern Ireland. They couldn’t make any more mistakes and above all they couldn’t make them against Ukraine the following Wednesday. It will be a crucial encounter in which Torres will start. In short, the game against Portugal – although a friendly that comes at a bad time (a very bad time, four days before a must-win tie) – it’s a key test for the nineteen who are in the national side for the first time. Iñaki’s idea is to put him in the front line of attack, ‘so that he can run and fight for the ball’ with Raúl behind. The manager hopes it will work so that he can do it again. Torres, for his part, yearns for a good game, a goal and a win.

It’s a clear 0-3 victory but in the Alfonso Henriques stadium (which had just been refurbished for the following year’s Euro 2004) the reality doesn’t match up to earlier expectations. Meira and Couto, the two Portuguese defenders, give him such a kicking that he has to receive medical treatment just before the end of the first half. In the 36th minute, Fernando Meira tackles him from behind, crashing into his left ankle and leaving him limping. Fernando Manuel Silva Couto completes the job in the 43rd minute with a ferocious kick. Raúl, captain of Real Madrid and the national side, comments: ‘I warned him it was going to be a very difficult match. He was in front of some hard defenders who were going to give him a tough time but it’s the route
he’s got to follow. Torres is the future of Spanish football.’ Torres himself is also aware that these are the risks of the trade. ‘What do you want? That they don’t give me a hard time?’ he asks at the end of the match, putting an end to any argument over the blows he has received. And he adds that he’s as happy as a sandboy because he’s made his first appearance in the senior side.

On his performance, there’s not much to report – a miskick that goes high, some good control to get round the direct-minded opposition, and good passing. The critics were generous, stressing that the youngster seemed intimidated at the start. He wasn’t the centre of attention as he usually was when playing for Atlético, and they also underlined the lack of interaction with his team-mates. That’s normal, it’s the first time. The try-out, however, is sufficiently convincing, at least for Iñaki, that at Elche in Spain, in the home match against Ukraine, he will be a definite starter. And this time it’s going to be serious. Qualification is in the balance. In the 51st minute, Dymitrulin up-ends Etxeberría in the area. Penalty. Fernando Torres takes the ball and calmly places it on the spot. Before the match, Sáez asked who was ready to take a penalty. El Niño raised his hand. He wants to show that now he’s arrived in the national side, he wants to stay. For a long time. He’s not nervous or overawed as he steps back from the spot. To score is crucial. Spain aren’t playing well and Andriy Voronin (a future team-mate of Torres at Liverpool) has already sent a message of intent to Spain keeper, Iker Casillas. Fernando makes his run-up and sends a slow, limp, average shot to the left of the keeper. Shovkovskyy guesses right and grabs the ball. Torres can’t do anything more than kick the air in frustration. Fortunately, this failure doesn’t turn out to be decisive (Spain, thanks to Raúl, win 2-1), but next day, criticism of the youngster’s error doesn’t make for light reading.

And what’s more, all the commentators ask why it was up to him to take responsibility for the penalty when, in the national team, there are others with more experience of spot-kicks, like Reyes or Xavi. Iñaki Sáez calms the waters and explains: ‘I think you have to go through this sort of experience in order to be successful. But there’s nothing to worry about. This will help him become a better player.’ Prophetic words. Because that’s certainly what he becomes. He applies himself to the task, as well as Gregorio Manzano, his trainer at Atlético, who, for several days, is photographed explaining to his player exactly how to take a penalty and get it right. ‘It was just an exercise in how to visualise,’ explains Manzano today, ‘so that he would take other penalties, with the thought that your first idea is what you have to stick with and not change it at the last moment. I wanted to help him. He was starting to grow in the national team and to demonstrate his skills in spite of the failure against Ukraine.’

Also of interest at Elche is that Milan sporting director, Ariedo Braida, is amongst the spectators. He wants to see in the flesh the new jewel of Spanish football. Information that he’s received from his observers is very good. They’re thinking seriously of making an offer to Atlético. But Torres, who has spoken to his team-mates and ex-Milan players Demetrio Albertini and José Mari, rules out for the moment any move to Italy. It’s better to be older for Italian football. There’s the risk of getting burned …

But we return to the national side and redemption. It takes place seven months later by complete coincidence in Italy, in Genova, against the Italian national side on 28 April 2004. An important friendly. For Italy, it’s a homage to 37-year-old Roberto Baggio, the great improviser of Vicenza, Fiorentina, Juventus, Milan, Inter, Brescia and of the national team, from which he will retire at the end of the season. The European Footballer of the Year 1993
returns to the national team after five years’ absence for one last game in the blue shirt. For Spain, it’s the last test before Euro 2004. The Spanish manager sends out the same team as for the game with Portugal. He decides to try out two strike pairings, Raúl with Morientes and Valerón plus Fernando Torres. El Niño comes on at the beginning of the second half wearing his lucky Number 14. His team-mates have given him permission to choose it because fourteen, he says, has always brought him luck. And these things in football are no laughing matter. Fernando wants to score. He feels that this time it’s right. After four matches with the national side, he needs to get rid of his psychological block. One knows that the first goal for a striker is crucial. Eight minutes after the break, Albelda wins the ball in midfield, passes it directly upfield to Valerón who waits for the right moment – the Italian defenders come out – before giving it to Torres, who shoots across the goal towards the far post, which is out of Peruzzi’s reach. It’s his first goal with the senior squad. A celebration that is rained on three minutes later by Bobo Vieri who, by chance, is an ex-Atlético Madrid player. Torres is also left with the sensation that he could have scored again. This time, however, everyone praises El Niño’s impressive performance.