Torres (6 page)
Calvo had in his care a line-up that, apart from Torres, could boast players like Manu Del Moral, now at Getafe, Francisco Molinero, today at Real Mallorca, Fernando Usero, now at Elche, and Sergio Torrers who will later win the Under-16 European championship with Fernando. Elements that made for a great season. The key moment is the Nike Under-14 World Club Cup, which took place in May 1999 in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The Atlético Cadete junior team has won the right to play in the prestigious European tournament after first coming through a national competition. The participants are: Real Madrid, Roma, Reggiana (Italy), Belenenses (Portugal), LASK (Austria), Amiens (France), LASK (Austria), Amiens (France), Mouscron (Belgium), B 93 (Denmark) St Joseph’s Boys (Ireland), Servette (Switzerland), Symonds Green (England), KFUM Oslo (Norway), Etzella (Luxembourg), PSV (Netherlands), Hammarby (Sweden), Inter Turku (Finland), Borussia Dortmund (Germany), Heart of Midlothian (Scotland).
Before the final phase, they take part in a four-sided event with Porto, PSV and Andorra. ‘Against our near-neighbours, Andorra, we won 11-1 but we played poorly, without commitment, without bite,’ remembers Calvo. ‘So everyone, and Fernando in particular, was read the riot act before the final against PSV. They were told that this would not do and that they had to do better. He went out onto the pitch really wanting to show me that he didn’t merit what I’d said. So in one of the first moves, he swerved past five opponents, then went round the keeper, stopped the ball on the goal line, looked over to the dugout and blasted a shot into the goal.’
In the quarter-finals at the Reggio Emilia tournament, the Atlético youngsters once again come up against PSV.
The Dutch are dismissed with a decisive 3-0 scoreline. And Fernando repeated the same trick – in the first move of the match, he gets past three opponents, nutmegs the fourth and lobs the keeper to put them in the lead. The semi-final sees them up against Real Madrid, a Spanish city derby in Italy. A difficult contest against the title-holders, who had disposed of Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-finals. The 2-0 final scoreline leaves no doubts, however, as to the title pretensions of Atlético, who will now meet host side Reggiana in the final. Molinero scored in the eighth minute and it stays at 1-0 until the final whistle. It is the first important title – the first European Cup – that Fernando, the captain, holds aloft.
He is chosen as the best player of the tournament, a recognition that, together with his goals and his movement off the ball, attracts the attention of several European clubs. ‘Arsenal made an offer to Fernando’s father and Barcelona and Milan were also keen. So much so that the club decided to offer him his first professional contract,’ explains Calvo. At fifteen years of age, Torres signs the contract. It’s not worth as much as Arsenal were offering but he’s happy. He is playing for the team he loves. Football, for him, begins to be more than just a hobby, even if he does not yet realise that it will be his life and his profession. That is still some years ahead.
Meanwhile, he moves up from the
Cadete
team to the
Juvenil
– another way of saying he jumped three years in one go. He meets Abraham García – the last coach he would have in the junior teams and a key figure in his career development – and Ignacio Aznar Torrente, better known as ‘Nacho’, with whom he formed an attacking strike duo. ‘We understood each other well. We knew, without speaking, where the other was on the pitch at any given moment,’ recalls Aznar, who today plays at Club Deportivos Leganés
in Group II of the Spanish Second Division B. ‘Fer was a model of power, ability to score with headers, movement and finishing in front of goal. We became a pair capable of scoring 70 goals a season. Abraham demanded a lot from us. He pushed us, him and me. He was never satisfied. He knew that Fernando and I could go further.’
One match that Nacho has not forgotten is the final of the international tournament, Citta di Rieti, in May 2000. Fernando says one of his legs is hurting but García knows that his presence on the pitch is important. ‘Get out there and win this final. If not, you’re not going to get anywhere,’ he tells them. Fernando plays and scores the goal that sets them on their way. Lazio are swept aside 5-0 and Atlético win another prestigious trophy – as well as the junior league championship a few months later. But the young striker in red and white is then hit by a setback. It happens on 9 August at Boadilla, while training with a team made up of players from the Spanish third division. Fernando clashes with a central defender and collapses. Damaged knee ligaments is the grim verdict. A really bad-looking injury. After the operation, the doctors say it will be eight to 10 months before he can play again. Team-mate José Verdú Toché (now with Numancia), who suffers the same injury at the same time, returns to football eleven months later, in May 2001. Fernando Torres, on the other hand, thanks to his determination and exceptional physical condition, is already back on the pitch in December 2000.
The year to come will bring a huge amount of satisfaction as well as a major disappointment.
A model footballer
Conversation with Atlético de Madrid junior team coach, Abraham García
There is more activity than usual at the Ciudad Deportiva de Majadahonda (Majadahonda Sports City) in Cerro del Espino, about twelve miles from Madrid city centre. Abel Resino, the new manager of Atlético Madrid (who replaced the Mexican, Javier Aguirre), is directing his first training session. Television crews, zoom lenses and all eyes are focused on the playing area, where the first team is being put through its paces. Journalists are commentating and taking notes on the team set-up, while fans and curious bystanders watch with interest. They are trying to work out what the ex-Atlético goalkeeper (whose European tally for clean sheets – 1,275 minutes set in 1990–91 – was beaten earlier this year by Manchester United’s Edwin Van de Sar) is telling his new players.
Everyone has their back turned to the green rectangle where Atlético B is training or, to be more precise, where the junior team – made up of seventeen- to eighteen-year-olds – is playing a match. Green bibs against red vests. On the edge of the pitch is the manager, Abraham García, arms folded across his chest, watching how his charges are developing. Every now and then, he shouts an instruction to Cedric, a young midfielder born in Kinshasa, or to striker
Didí, who is from Barcelona. Ten minutes after the training is over, the youngsters all pile out. Abraham comes over to the boundary fence and arranges to meet at the dressing room exit. First, there is the customary banter with his young players and then a shower to freshen up and get warm again. Despite the spring sky, it is still cold at Cerro del Espino.
For 35-year-old Abraham, built more like a rugby prop forward than a midfielder, football runs in the family. His father, ‘Juanjo’ García, who died a few years ago, was manager of Castilla, Real Madrid’s second team and took the side to a Copa del Rey (King’s Cup) final against the Real Madrid first team. For the last eleven years he has trained junior teams, first at Atlético, then three years at Real Madrid, and is now back at the home of the red-and-white stripes. Fernando Torres always speaks of him as the most important manager of his career. Why? Abraham, who is now out of his training tracksuit and sitting at a café in front of the Ciudad Deportiva with a large glass of Coca-Cola in front of him, begins to explain: ‘Fernando is very generous and recognises the work of a manager and the effort he puts in. Our relationship, which lasted two years, was more of a professional than a personal one. When I look at the great managers that he’s had during his career, for him to remember me like this gives me a lot of pride and satisfaction.’
‘Fernando was fifteen and had just won the Nike International Cup in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where he was top scorer and been voted the player of the tournament. He was with me until 2001, when he made his debut with the first team.’
‘A player with a tremendous build, which comes from his family (his older brother, Israel, was 6ft 3ins when he was fifteen). He had the muscles of a sprinter, was fast, skilful, smart, hungry for victory and always wanting to get better. He was very professional, self-critical and never 100 per cent happy with how he was playing. He put the bar high. He had a strong personality. On a mental level, to me he always resembled Raúl for his strength of spirit. For his importance as a footballer, I would compare him to Van Basten with his elegant style of running and capacity for scoring goals. From when he was small, he was always thinking of the goal, of scoring.’
‘He wasn’t a docile lad. Dealing with him, sometimes, was tricky. He was quite shy and would mind his own business. From when he was a small boy, he was sheltered by his family, which knew how to keep him on the straight and narrow. I remember his father or mother always brought him to training sessions and I never saw them brag about the lad. His personality and his environment have absolutely been key to Fernando’s success.’
‘In all the years that I’ve been training youngsters – and I’ve worked with more than 300 – only about fifteen or twenty have gone on to be professional footballers. Talent is inborn, each one (of them) has it, but to reach the top level – that’s something else. You must stick to your guns. You’ve got to have your feet on the ground, to know what’s really important in life, to earn yourself a place in the team, to fight for a position and to overcome enormous difficulties, particularly psychological ones. To put it simply, you
not only have to have the gift of being able to control a football – your mentality, desire and determination counts for a hell of a lot as well. This is the most important thing that I’ve tried to instil into my players, apart from obviously giving them a training in those technical skills that could be useful to them in the future.’
‘All I did was try to tell him some things that, at a sporting and human level, could help him deal with whatever might come his way. I told him to be what he’s always been
,
an ambitious young guy who’d be able to sort out the shortcomings he had, as everyone has, and in the end his desire to do things well would overcome any criticism or difficult moments. Then, more as a joke than anything else, I told him not to worry, that if one day the football didn’t work out, with his looks and general appearance, he could always earn a living in the world of fashion. And now look where he is, a star player as well as being a model in loads of advertising campaigns.’
‘Without doubt, a fantastic goal he scored in the league against Rayo Vallecano. He got hold of the ball in the middle of the pitch, he went past one, two, three, dribbling his way through the opposition midfield leaving them rooted to the spot and then scoring an amazing goal. And then after that, how can you forget the trophies we won with that team? For example, the league title, which we snatched from Real Madrid. A pity about the Cup though, Fernando was a member of the Spanish national side that had just won the European Under-16 Championship and he didn’t want to miss the Cup final against Osasuna. We lost 1-0. In any case, it was another example of the desire he had to be
on the pitch and to help his team-mates win another title. He was the player everyone looked up to. He had charm and he made the difference.’
‘Very well. Even though some of them were two or three years older than him, he was always competing at a higher age level. I remember a team dinner after winning the league. They were all grown-up by then and everyone wanted to go out on the town. I smiled to myself at Fernando, the youngest of them and his refusal to let himself be led astray. He was very responsible and knew how to behave – both at a party like that and in the dressing room. He didn’t put on any airs. He was always talking about the team and encouraging the others. He was very humble but at the same time very mature for his age. He would listen when you explained something to him or commented on something he was doing wrong that he should improve.’
That’s true. But you have to remember when he joined the first team. He came on the scene at a time when the team wasn’t doing well. He was a lad who came from the junior Spanish national side, which had won the Under-19 European Championship, who brought a breath of fresh air to the squad and who, in a few years, had transformed himself into the public face of the club.’
‘They criticised him for the results, for the missed goals, for the side’s bad run but also for his technique – his poor left leg, his lack of control and inability to lose his marker.’
‘Now he plays much better off the ball, he knows how to lose his marker and when he gets going, he’s unstoppable. He’s a modern striker in the true meaning of the word. He’s complete, fast, can apply pressure and is a good finisher. He can use both his legs and his head. He doesn’t have the class of Van Basten, the technique of Ronaldo, or the elegance of Ibrahimovic, nor is he unbalanced like Messi, but he scores a lot of goals – and really good ones too. He works for the team and has a drive to be the best, which takes him where he has to be. He knew how to overcome his limitations using character and nerve.’
‘No. He’s still the lad I knew here in Atlético. Last year, I met him in Liverpool, where I’d gone to see Rafa Benítez, and he was as warm and generous as he he’d always been. There was none of the ‘I’m a star’ who’s forgotten his friends or a junior trainer like me.’
