Read Torres Online

Authors: Luca Caioli

Tags: #Sport/Biography

Torres (5 page)

BOOK: Torres
6.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
The bottom?

‘We all had to endure it from time to time. You have the ball in the air and whoever is the first to let it touch the ground has to get on top of one of the goalposts – the goal could be a bench, for example. You then have to show your bottom while the others would shoot at you from the penalty spot, trying to hit you on the er, well, you know, on the bum …’

Haven’t you forgotten about the bottle tops and the picture cards?

‘You’re right. Those were the other things we were crazy about at that time,’ said Javier. ‘Yes, the little squares in-between one building and another – today they’re cement but before that there was earth. And it’s there that we set up our ‘stadiums’ and ‘cycle tracks’ with Coca-Cola and beer bottle tops, which we got from the bars. We put the club colours and the player’s face on them, a plastic stopper for the goalkeeper and a chickpea for the ball. In summer we changed from football to cycling, this time with bottle tops in the colours of Banesto or Kelme and faces of cyclists like
Indurain. I remember that Fernando used to love playing with the bottle tops. He was good with them, while the marbles weren’t really his thing. And then there were the picture cards. At the beginning of the season, everyone went out to play with their wad of cards. When someone completed an album he could go up to the ‘castle’ – a place we’d built – or the window of his house and throw down the duplicate cards for the others below who would go crazy to grab them.’

Which team did Fernando support?

‘At that time,’ continues Javier, ‘he wasn’t supporting any team in particular, although he clearly loved playing football. It was only later, when he was at Atlético that he really began to follow their colours. He went to the Calderón as a ball boy while I, who’d always been a colchonero (fan of Atlético Madrid) and a milanista (fan of AC Milan), went to see the matches. Afterwards, we’d talk about the new songs, chants and dances they’d made up that Sunday. In fact, a nice little story comes to mind about Fernando when he was a player with the Atlético junior team. You should know that 14 September is the day of the fiesta of Fuenlabrada, in honour of the Cristo de la Misericordia, with celebrations going on the whole week. There are concerts, dances and around 24 hours of football, from nine in the morning to eleven at night, featuring mini-leagues, knockout games and finals in all categories. When we were small, our team always took part and we always won. This particular year, Fernán was already at the junior level with Atlético, which obviously meant that they wouldn’t let him play in neighbourhood tournaments like ours. But we needed him. We had to win a match in order to get to the final. So we went to get him. He came out with a photocopy of his DNI (national identity card) and signed up. There was someone who really didn’t
like him and called us cheats but thanks to him, we won the match and the tournament. It was the last time he played with us.’

Gómez senior explains:

‘Torres left, while most of the local lads didn’t want to go off and carried on playing as amateurs and fans of the game. It’s true that various good players like Fernando Sánchez and Fernando Burgos came out of Fuenlabrada but the majority, like Israel for example, just wanted to do it for fun and stayed here or, like my son, didn’t have the determination or the will to make the effort. Training didn’t bother Fernando, for example. He would come out on his own with the ball under his arm. In the case of Alexis, someone had to take the ball. Torres had all the determination in the world and he wanted to get on the ladder.’

So, for the 1994–95 season, he went to AD (Asociación Deportiva) Rayo 13. The rayo (ray) was the symbol of the club, founded in 1992, and 13 was the number of the street for the team headquarters. The diagonal yellow ray was emblazoned into the badge of the club shirt, which featured vertical blue and black vertical stripes like those of Inter Milan.

‘Four of us went from Mario’s Holanda to Rayo: Fernán, Alejandro, Rici and me,’ says Alexis. ‘The change from indoor football to a team of eleven suited Torres very well, because on the bigger pitch he could make better use of his speed and his shooting skills. Fernando was already a “killer”, a real assassin in the penalty area. Myself, I’d gone from left wing in indoor football to midfielder in 11-a-side. I searched him out, gave him the balls and he took his fill of goals. It was incredible – if I’m not mistaken his tally was around 55 or 60. We won the league, pretty much without a problem. I only remember one match where we had to
make a real effort, against Naranjo. We were losing 2-0 but Fernando arrived and made it 2-1 and then scored again to make it a draw. Amazing.’

That’s the opinion of his friend and team-mate. But what’s the view of the Rayo 13 coach, Andrés Perales? Now 54, his enthusiasm for the game is as great as ever and he continues to teach young boys the art of football.

‘He was a marvel and very kind-hearted but in the first few sessions it was really complicated to work with the lad. He was annoyed with his team-mates because they didn’t pass the ball to him. He always wanted the ball, he always wanted to score. And he did it in every way possible, from midfield, or by outwitting the opposing players in front of him. He had quality and he was smart. Once or twice he really lost it, like with ‘El Chino’ (‘The Chinese’), a left-footed winger, a nice lad. They got entangled and I had to go and sort them out. El Chino went home while Torres stayed. With me, there were never any problems. I was pretty strict and asked for respect and hard work from the whole team. I made him play on the right wing and then as striker.

‘Anecdotes? Loads … like the time in Leganés when we were losing 3-0, he and one of the wingers, David, gave the runaround to his marker. We won 4-3, which put us in the final. Yes, Torres was a footballing machine. But I never thought he would get so far.’

But Torres did get far. And very far. What do his ex-team-mates think of him now?

‘He’s realised the dream we all had,’ says Alexis, ‘all those kids kicking a ball around the neighbourhood. We grew up together and now he’s the striker who scored the goal for Spain in the final of Euro 2008. It’s a pleasure to have played with him and to have him as your friend.’

The long chat is over and the train for central Madrid is leaving shortly from Fuenlabrada Central. Javier walks
through the local streets to the station, pointing out the places of his childhood: the small squares, Mr Miguel’s window, and the fence they jumped over. Just in front of the Mario’s Holanda cafetería, which has been closed for some time, is Rubén, the goalkeeper from that team. He also continues playing football as an amateur. He starts to talk about matches, results, and coaches who were changed too quickly … and football in the
Segunda Regional
.

Chapter 7
A born winner

‘How much do we give this lad?’

‘This little freckled one with the blond hair

gets 10 plus one … an 11’

The conversation takes place in June, 1995, in the Ernesto Cotorruelo sports facility in the Carabanchel district of Madrid. The protagonists: Manolo Briñas and Manolo Rangel. One is the deputy director of Atlético Madrid football school and the other is one of its coaches.

The two find themselves, one summer morning, on three hard, bare playing surfaces, lost in the middle of a huge boulevard full of cars and in front of a row of sad-looking buildings. They have to select some youngsters to form part of the junior team, which will take part that August in an international tournament at Bierbeek, in the Brabant province of Belgium, a few miles from Leuven. Briñas holds the notebook, Rangel gives the points. He gives a score for each of the would-be footballers from one to ten but when that freckled one with the blond hair appears in front of them, the guidelines disappear.

‘After five minutes,’ recalls Antonio Seseña, today aged 66 and retired but then director of the Atlético Madrid junior players, ‘we told him, ‘Go and get dressed, lad.’ He looked surprised, he wanted to keep on playing, he thought he was no good, that he’d failed. He asked me, ‘Am I doing something wrong?’ On the contrary, he had completely won
us over. We saw an intelligent lad, who moved well on the pitch, had pace and good technique as well, qualities which, at that age, really stand out.’

‘Yes, Fernando Torres at eleven was a very smart kid – fast, able to lose his marker and beat his opponent. Without having participated too much in the action, I realised that he was doing everything fantastically well. And above all, he seemed to me like a kid who wanted to be a footballer,’ explains Manolo Rangel, aged 55, who worked with the Atlético junior teams for twelve years.

In that June of 1995, Fernando had already passed the first selection test to enter the ranks of Atlético. Like lots of other kids of his age, he had gone to the Vicente Calderón stadium, filled in the registration forms, and had been invited – along with 200 others – to go to the ground in the Tres Cruces park between Aluche and Carabanchel. An 11-a-side match to sort out what each of them was able to do, then after that another 22 kids and so on. ‘Victor Peligros, Antonio Arganda and I were there that day,’ recalls Briñas in his office at the Calderón. Behind him, and framed in a glass-fronted case, is one of Fernando’s shirts. It’s the one he was wearing on 23 February 2008, when he got a hattrick at Middlesborough. Alongside is a photo of an ecstatic El Niño, having just scored a goal for the Reds, and on it is written in felt-tip pen: ‘For my great friend, Manolo Briñas, a heartfelt embrace in return for all the affection that you have shown and continue to show for me, Fernando Torres.’ On re-reading this dedication, 77-year-old Briñas is visibly moved and points to the walls covered with cuttings describing Fernando and all the other youngsters from the Atlético junior teams who have ended up in the top division. The only exception is the Uraguayan Diego Forlán (formerly of Villarreal and Manchester United), whose impressive tally of 32 league goals last season was a huge factor in taking
Atlético into the Champions League for the second year running, as well as earning him the Spanish
Pichichi
trophy and the European Golden Boot for the player with the highest number of league goals in Spain and Europe respectively.

After this diversion, the veteran coach continues with the story of that team in the Tres Cruces park: ‘From those 200 youngsters, we had to choose 40. If I remember rightly, Fernando scored four goals but the coaches didn’t choose him for that. Apart from the goals, he was marked positively for his involvement in the game and for his unselfish attitude.’

In the official test notes for that day, in strict alphabetical order, one can read, alongside the name Fernando José Torres Sanz: ‘Suitable (to be seen in our teams). He will be sent instructions.’ To be more precise, he would go to the Cotorruelo ground, where Manolo Rangel, some time later, would give him the mark of eleven.

But why did Fernando end up taking his chances with Atlético and not Real Madrid, the city’s ‘first’ team? It was all down to Eulalio Sanz, Fernando’s maternal grandfather.

By way of a short preamble, the Torres family was not very football-oriented. It was not one of those Spanish families glued to the radio listening to live match commentaries, nor was it one of those where, when there was a big match, all the relatives and friends joined together to experience the event on television. The passion for football and particular clubs in the Torres household was pretty lukewarm. There was certainly a fondness for Deportivo La Coruña because of the father’s family origins. But nothing special. The real fan was his grandfather. A lifelong
rojiblanco
(supporter of Atlético Madrid).

In the sitting room of Elulalio and Paz in Valdeavero, there was an impressive-looking ceramic plate with the
Atlético badge. It was an object that fascinated Fernando. He could remember it from when he was two or three years old. At that time he knew nothing about football matches or clubs, but his grandfather – thanks to that plate – began his ‘sentimental education’. Each time the small Torres went to look at it, he repeated to him: ‘When you’re grown-up, you must be with Atlético.’ And with the passing of the years, he began to explain the club’s ideals and values. He began to explain that Real Madrid was everyone’s team, the one that always won, while Atléti was the other side of the coin, where defeats had to be suffered and where being a fan required real effort.

The seed of support took hold and grew. When he was nine, Fernando’s father took him to the Vicente Calderón museum, where they keep the trophies, cups, old photographs, footballs, badges and pennants – a trip that left the youngster in awe. Some years later it will be Manolo Briñas who explains to Fernando, one-to-one, the symbols and the 106-year-old history of a club founded in April 1903, which boasts nine league titles, and which, historically, comes to be considered Spain’s third-best team in terms of trophies and supporters, behind Real Madrid and Barcelona. So when Fernando qualifies to join Atlético, he’s hardly got home and in through the door before he’s on the phone to his grandfather to tell him the great news. A grandfather who will have the greatest satisfaction, before his death on 23 February 2003, to see Fernando in the shirt of his beloved team, playing in the Vicente Calderón.

But going back to the summer of 1995 and to the first impressions of Briñas, the person who began to train him:

‘Fernando was an open, amusing, happy and very responsible lad who gave everything. He wasn’t the typical joker who took his attitude into the matches. He already had his head well screwed-on. And all that was due to his
parents, who told him, “enjoy yourself at football but study”. And he followed that to the letter. I remember once, when I went to meet him at Atocha station, he was coming back from winning a tournament. He got off the train, he had a copy of
Marca
in his hand, where it was talking about him. I thought that he would want to show it to me but no – under the newspaper he had his end-of-term reports. He proudly showed them to me, “Look Manolo, I’ve passed in all subjects. And I’ve got quite a few top grades.” Yes, very often parents think they have a Maradona, they think their son can score the second goal before the first but life isn’t like that. To get there, you have to make sacrifices, not leave school and move forward bit-by-bit.’

And to explain how Torres was, he remembers the away match in Belgium: ‘At dinner, in the hotel, they served a vegetable soup and lots of the lads put their plates to one side without touching it, saying they found it nauseating, so much so that Rangel shouted ‘You don’t play if you haven’t eaten everything.’ It wasn’t necessary to say it to Fernando. He ate anything.’

Bierbeek – the first away match, the first foreign trip, the hotel, the team-mates, the first team base, the first international tournament. A lot of excitement for Fernando in those days of August 1995. Around 30 different teams are taking part in the tournament, including Ajax, Anderlecht, Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich – clubs that boast a long tradition of bringing through new talent. Atlético, on the other hand, has only just set up its junior teams. Manolo Rangel is worried about making a bad impression because his lads don’t know each other well. They haven’t even had time to train together. So, in-between matches, he gives them sessions with the ball and while walking round the hotel grounds, tries to explain how they should position themselves on the pitch.

During one of these sessions, he realises that ‘one of them, I think it was Fernando, had kicked a stone and unfortunately it broke a window in someone’s house. The owner came out shouting and protesting, with us not being able to understand what he was saying. We went through some difficult moments before someone from the organisation came and sorted things out.’ A stone that stayed in the memories of the coach and the youngsters. And it may actually have helped to unite the team because, in spite of the improvisation, they finish in sixth place. ‘Fernando stood out quite well and there were a lot of positive comments about him,’ adds Rangel.

It was then 1995–96, the first season in the red-and-white shirt. An important season for the club, which won a league and cup (Copa del Rey) double for the first time in its history. It broke the dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona. A success for the team managed by Radomir Antic, whose leading players included Kiko, Pantic, Caminero and Simeone. A double that reinforced the emotional ties between Torres and Atléti. And the pride of wearing the shirt of the Spanish champions.

Fernando was doing his part in the junior divisions. He gets 67 goals and is top-scorer, the sporting leader of the team and the focal point of the group. His skills are showcased in the
Torneo de Brunete
(the Brunete Tournament), a competition in which about twenty junior teams from clubs in the Spanish first division take part and where many young Spanish champions make their early mark. The youngster is fascinated by the atmosphere, the terraces at the Estadio Los Arcos, the television cameras filming the matches, the fans and the watchful eye of the observers and trainers at the games. He scores a succession of quick-fire goals, one after the other, and runs to tell his grandfather.

The following year, the shots of him used by regional television channel,
Telemadrid
, always show him at Brunete on the pitch against Milan, tall and thin, with his blond bob haircut and the Number 9 on his back. Fernando puts away penalties that the keeper can’t get hold of, dribbles past opponents even with a backheel and scores to make it 3-0 and then 4-0 in a perfect counter-attacking move going round the onrushing keeper.

‘Fernando was a born winner. He also wanted to win in training. I was 39, I had to quit playing football but I was in good enough condition to run with them,’ remembers Rangel, ‘I enjoyed making bets with him regarding a game, penalties, or who would score the most goals from a free-kick. And Fernando was really competitive. At the end of training, he would be waiting with his sports bag to inform me, ‘Coach, you owe me a Coca-Cola for what I’ve won from you.’ He was very bright, very smart.’

And Rangel is keen to stress, like Briñas, the importance of grandfather Torres Sanz: ‘A fantastic family, very close and well-balanced, which helped him enormously to be a footballer.’ His parents, José and Flori, his brother Israel and Mari Paz, his sister, help him in every way. On many occasions, his father has to get permission from work to take him from Fuenlabrada to Orcasitas, where he trains. His mother waits for him in front of the school gates in the wind and the rain, goes with him on the bus or on the train to the ground, and waits for the training to end to bring him back home. And without ever insisting or demanding that he become a professional. On the contrary, she tells him many times that ‘if you are tired or you don’t want to play, tell me and we won’t go again’. His brother and sister also assume their responsibilities for the 15-kilometre (about 10 miles) daily trip. They have to study and do their homework sitting on the terraces at the ground. Years divided between
school and training, with matches at the weekend. The best thing is when Fernando joins Atlético’s residential Colegio Amanecer school, just outside the centre of Madrid where, today, around 30 youngsters between the ages of fifteen and eighteen study up to the Spanish equivalent of A-levels. ‘Fernando was a student who knew how to combine books with the ball,’ recalls school coordinator Rafael Bravo. ‘His parents wrote us a very emotive letter when Fernando got his
Bachillerato
(equivalent to A-levels).’

A good student and an excellent footballer, so much so that he regularly ends up being the youngest in each of his Atlético junior teams. He plays with youngsters who are one, two or even three years older than him. It is a way of growing up more quickly and a way of learning more rapidly the rules of football because the older ones are stronger technically and physically and better-prepared mentally. Fernando works his way up through the junior ranks. Manolo Rangel is his teacher for three seasons.

Then it is Pedro Calvo’s turn to take charge of him for a year. Fernando is fourteen. How was he? ‘His manner and professionalism were the same as they are now,’ explains 40-year-old Calvo, enjoying a cafe
latte
in a central Madrid bar. ‘He was already the team captain but the responsibilities didn’t weigh him down. You would tell him that we eat at two o’clock and that everyone should come properly turned out. And ten minutes before time, he would be there with his team-mates, all properly dressed. He was always thinking about the group. He was very humble and he didn’t like too much praise. He didn’t get nervous, a normal thing at that age. He didn’t get angry. I remember that once I blamed him for the behaviour of the team and, instead of giving me a dirty look, he thought the problem over and it never went further than the dressing room. In a footballing sense he
was the same as now: rapid, sharp, skilled, very calm in front of goal and, above all, a sponge – he liked to learn.’

BOOK: Torres
6.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
So Far Into You by Lily Malone
Jo Beverley by Forbidden Magic
Traded by Lorhainne Eckhart
Document Z by Andrew Croome
Safety Tests by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Sad Love by MJ Fields