What REALLY happened to Fernando Torres?

Fernando Torres was once one of the world's best football players. He was the spearhead of Liverpool and his national team and reknown around the world. But his £50m move to Chelsea in 2011 saw his career hit the ground. But what really happened to cause such a drastic change in his form? Today, you get the truth.

On the 23^rd April 2011, on a wet, gloomy day in South West London, Fernando Torres sat disheartened on a cold bench in Chelsea’s dugout, as he watched his team face West Ham. Didier Drogba was the club’s first choice striker, and it was the fifth game in a row he had started on the bench.

In the 76^th minute, ‘El Nino’ – the kid, finally got his break. He replaced Drogba, and trudged onto the sodden Stamford Bridge turf to try and seal the victory. Chelsea were already one-nil up after a Frank Lampard goal in the first half.

The 84^th minute.

The ball drops to Nicolas Anelka in the West Ham half. He sends it through to Torres. Now he’s one-on-one with Rob Green, but the ball, slippery in the soaking conditions, gets stuck in a divot on the pitch. But Torres reacts before the defender. He turns back, swivels towards the ball, and strikes with his left foot.

Goal.

732 minutes after joining Chelsea, and 903 minutes since he last found the back of the net, Fernando Torres scores a goal. The crowd goes wild. His team mates, ecstatic and relieved, chase him down to the corner flag and pile on the striker in celebration. Finally, he’d done it.

Remember that?

Almost ten years earlier, Fernando Jose Torres Sanz made his professional debut for his boyhood club Atletico Madrid. He joined them when he was just eleven years old, in 1995.

Torres was no less than a child prodigy. He started off playing football as a goalkeeper, but then switched to the striker position at a young age. Atletico sent an under-15’s team to play in the Nike Cup in 1998, against other youth teams. Atletico won the tournament, and not surprisingly, Torres was named the best player. He signed his first professional contract in 1999 – aged 15.

It was May 2001, and the boy's dream had been fulfilled. By 2003, when Torres was 19, he was captain of Atletico Madrid. That’s how much they valued him. He was the figurehead of their club; the poster-boy – and from 2001-02 onwards, he was the striker in Atletico Madrid’s side. In his career at Atletico, he scored 91 goals. It wasn’t the most formidable scoring record, but after thirteen goals in eight games in 2005 and 2006, including the World Cup in Germany where his three goals propelled Spain to the second round, the big boys came calling.

At the time, Atletico weren’t the force of nature they are now – they only ever qualified once for European competition in Torres’ stint at the club. Liverpool were a solidified top four club in England at the time. Managed by Rafa Benitez, they had reached the Champions League final in 06-07 and Torres, who had been seen as a potential target for at least a year, signed for the club in a move worth around £20m.

The reign of Torres started.

In 2007-08, Torres became the best striker in the Premier League and one of the best in the world. He scored twenty-four league goals in thirty three games. He was everywhere. The flowing blonde locks, long t-shirt and white T90 Nike boots became a signature and a brand in itself. He was printed on t shirts, seen on Premier League billboards and advertising and idolised by millions over the world.

In 2008-09, Torres scored a dimished tally of 14 league goals as Liverpool narrowly lost out on the title to Manchester United. But his form and determination was still present – just look at his goal in their 4-1 demolishing of Manchester United.

In 2009-10, he scored 18 league goals but only played 22 games in a campaign marred by injury. His return was still exceptional.

If you watch some of his performances from the period, you can see he had it all. Unrivalled confidence, the ability to shoot from anywhere, wicked power, a great burst of pace, dribbling skills, athleticism, an uncanny heading talent, thirst for goals and a knack for finishing that was unmatched by most strikers on the globe.

But he lost it.

Torres took 14 games to score for Chelsea when he joined for the meteoric figure of £50m in 2011.

He didn’t score again that season, and early in 2011-12, a career-defining miss against Manchester United led critics to say that he was no longer the Torres he used to be.

Torres’ best total for a league campaign for Chelsea was eight. Eight. He joined AC Milan on a two-year loan in summer 2014, which was made permanent six months later – but he ceremoniously returned to his boyhood club Atletico on another loan deal from Milan in January 2015. He only ever scored one goal for Milan, and never returned after his spell back at Madrid, with the deal made permanent after nine years away, in 2016.

Torres’ story is a very unfortunate one. Once one of the world’s best players, his major duck at Chelsea saw him vindicated by the sceptical eye of pundits, newspapers and fans the world round – with his name so well known, it was undoubted he would come under the spotlight.

People watching his every move, coupled with his hefty price tag, perhaps made Torres one of the most pressurised football players of all time. Pressure is a word that people like to use a lot, and sometimes for the wrong reasons, but for Torres, it fits the bill.

Over the years, the phrase ‘Torres is back’ became one that was mightily overused and mightily used too soon. Since his beginning at Chelsea, he has been hounded with back-page headlines of ‘Torres is back’ every time he but scores a goal – a job he used to do day-to-day without any thought or consequence at all.

It’s 2017-18 now. Torres is 33 and is in the twilight period of his career. He’s made eight appearances so far. He’s yet to score.

Where did it actually go wrong?

The injuries

People always, always seem to associate Torres’ downfall – if we must call it that – with Chelsea, and his massive price tag. ‘He couldn’t live up to the expectations.’ The actual problem started a year and a half prior.

On 13^th January 2010, Liverpool faced Reading in an F.A. Cup third round match. They lost 2-1, but Torres, who failed to make an impact, only played for half an hour before going off with a knee injury.

He underwent surgery for this knee injury and was out for six weeks but returned to fitness and scored another ten goals in the Premier League and Europa League.

On 8 April 2010, Liverpool faced Benfica in a Europa league tie. The game ended 4-1, with Torres providing two goals and being replaced by David Ngog in the 86^th minute.

After the game, he saw a specialist who said that the injury could be cured via rest. But after increasing discomfort and pain, Torres sought a second assessment, and it was at this point that he would have to have another operation to repair the torn meniscus cartilage in his right knee.

A devastated Torres was out for the rest of the season, after a strong goal-scoring season for the club which produced such wonders as his goal against Sunderland, one of the strikes of the campaign. The good news was that he would be back in time for the World Cup, with Spain’s first game on June 16^th.

Torres left the Premier League looking like this.

He returned, for the World Cup, looking like this.

The 2010 World Cup

Torres, having lost his blonde locks and sporting a new-look, dark brown short-back-and-sides haircut, was included in Spain’s World Cup squad despite his lack of involvement towards the end of the season.

Spain won that World Cup. But Torres didn’t score. In fact, he either came on as a substitute, or was substituted, in every single game of the tournament. Unlike at Euro 2008 where Torres scored the winning goal against Germany, David Villa was the shining star of Spain’s incredible tiki-taka victory, and Torres only came on in the 106^th minute in the final. The team didn’t need him. They were good enough without.

Two things resulted from that world cup. Torres would’ve undoubtedly had a confidence knock. He was substituted in the 58^th and 56^th minutes respectively in the round of 16 and quarters, and then only came on in the 81^st in the semi’s. Del Bosque treated him as no more than a squad player. And he didn’t score.

Torres lies on the ground in pain after his
hamstring injury in the 2010 World Cup final

The second result was his injury in the final. In the dying seconds of the game, Torres, who had looked less sharp than the previous season throughout the entire tournament, pulled up with an aggressive-looking hamstring injury after a distinct lack of involvement. It was a bitter way to end a disappointing tournament – and just another injury to add to the list.

But it was clear to many – Torres didn’t look like the player he had been in the preceding seasons.

Luis Suarez

In 2010-11, Torres was scoring, but not for fun. He netted nine times in twenty-three league encounters in the first half of 2010-11. But Liverpool had their eye on a new star. Luis Suarez’s goal-scoring exploits for Uruguay at the 2010 World Cup had caught many a team’s eye and his ratio of 49 goals in 48 games the prior season had many wondering why he hadn’t already been snapped up.

Torres’ diminishing form and speculation about his future led to his way out of the club. Chelsea had allegedly first enquired about Torres in 2005-06 but movements for the player had been rejected by Atletico Madrid.

The big-money move

On the 31^st January 2011, Fernando Torres completed his move from Liverpool to Chelsea for £50m, on the same day Liverpool signed Suarez. At the time, it was the fourth most expensive transfer in footballing history – long since eclipsed – for a player who was out of form, prone to injury and hadn’t been at his best for at least six months. The press and the public were left gobsmacked. Fifty million?

It was in fact against Chelsea that he had shown the best glimpse of his former form when he netted two against them – one a stunning curling shot – in a 2-0 home victory in November 2010. He’d actually only scored two goals that Premier League season prior to the Chelsea brace. Truth be told, Torres in 2010-11 still had the power that had made him so lethal just months earlier – but it was the lack of pace that troubled Torres so much.

Did Chelsea ‘destroy’ Torres?

The £50m price tag is usually the excuse Chelsea fans turn to, to explain his drastic drop in form when he joined the club. Chelsea ‘destroying’ Torres is usually the excuse his die-hard fans, or Liverpool admirers, turn to, to explain the same problem.

As a matter of fact, Torres started five games out of the first six he was available for. He was, however, substituted midway through three of these and didn’t start the sixth fixture, being brought on as a replacement for Nicolas Anelka in the 71^st minute in a 0-0 draw with Stoke. Probably not what a £50m price tag warrants.

But his form wasn’t good enough. For two reasons.

The price tag undoubtedly affected Torres. Maybe not in a major way, but he knew he had a job to fulfil and footballers, being mere humans, can let the pressure get to them sometimes.

But the price tag is coupled with his playing style. For Torres was no longer as fast.

Torres’ quick change of pace, which he used to use to burn past players with one heavy touch, or drag it round the defender to race onto, had been lost through injury. Simply, he was slower than before. It also meant he was less agile – his right knee wasn’t as in good shape and he couldn’t move as well, or make good runs – and it’s visible in his performances around that time.

He wasn’t Chelsea’s main man because Didier Drogba was in better form. Even Chelsea’s other deadline day signing David Luiz scored his first goal for the club before Torres – and he was a centre back.

A lack of enjoyment?

Torres was never Chelsea’s best player. He was never first name on the team sheet. And he’d never experienced that before. Maybe that’s what rocked him. At Liverpool, he was the most important, the best – and he felt like he had that right to act like the star. At Chelsea, it almost seemed like he didn’t fit it – his team-mates weren’t his friends like they were at Liverpool. And everything – always – boiled down to his form.

I’m no psychologist, but the mind is a big part of playing football – not least when you’re playing in front of millions of viewers around the world, weekly. Dwelling on mistakes, making decisions. It affects players. Just ask Craig Bellamy. Torres’ relapses in form usually came in phases. Whichever team he was playing for – he’d have a game where he’d score; then next game he’d score two; he’d start shooting more, and calling for the ball; then he might make a mistake, or bad pass, or tread on the ball. And he’d go into his shell again. Run around and try to make it look like he was making an effort when, at times, after all his career had thrown at him, it looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up. The miss against Manchester United is one example. He thought he was getting back to form. Then that happened. Shattering blow.

People will say ‘it’s just football’ but from analysing the way Torres moved and played on the pitch it seemed like he cared a lot about what people thought of him – way more so after he joined Chelsea. Because of the price tag; because of his name; because of the pressure he put on himself to return to form after injury.

It was most evident in his goal celebrations. Just look at clips of when he played at Liverpool. He’d score a big goal and sprint away, shouting in delight, smiling. At Chelsea, it seemed every time he scored, he was reserved, subdued; not happy enough with his performance to celebrate properly. Look at the goal he scored in the Europa League final, for example, against Benfica. He trods away, to emotionlessly point to the sky in a gesture it looks like he’s doing to try and make it look like he’s happy to have scored. Or the Champions League semi finals, when his last minute winner, the most famous goal he ever scored for the Blues, sent them through to the final. Just a light jog and a half-hearted knee slide in the corner. No passion. Was he ever actually enjoying himself at Chelsea?

In moving back to Atletico Madrid, Torres found himself back where supposedly, he always was meant to be. Six and a half years on from his Chelsea transfer, and now a sporadic squad player, Torres is now slowly fading out of the game like he never even existed.

It was a multitude of factors that caused Torres’ career to spiral drastically downhill. Injuries were a big part of it – confidence issues just added to the problem.

‘Chelsea’s playing style didn’t suit Torres’ is a load of rubbish. The truth is, Torres’ downfall was imminent a long time before he joined the Blues – and it’s just unfortunate that his time in London accentuated just how bad it got.