How Football Politics KILLED The Career Of ＂The Perfect Striker＂

So, listen to this. Do you really remember Prime Fernando Torres? Like, do you really? Are you sure? Because most people say they do, but if you ask them who had the greatest goal scoring peak in Premier League history, they'll immediately call out the names of Alan Shearer, Henry, Ronaldo, Salah and Haaland, but they'll all forget the scariest of them all was the blond kid with a hairband in the total 90s. That's how effective the smear campaign against him was, the kid got in the way of a handful of billionaires stuck in a fight for who could suck the most money out of their respective clubs and then it was pure character assassination. His own teammates would refuse to look him in the eye, his own fans were burning his shirt and labelling him a traitor. Within a year, they had pundits like Lumacari looking you dead in the eye and claiming that Fernando Torres was never a great player. By the time they were done with him, it's like the fans memories had been wiped, they had convinced the world he had never been anything more than a flop, but god damn, those who held onto the memories know there has never been a player who took the Premier League by storm quite like him. Listen, when Liverpool signed Torres, they had been going through a major striker drought, they had gone from Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen to Diouf, Morientes and Sinema Pongol, even the better ones like Milan Barros and Crouch still couldn't crack double digits in the league, yet the thing is, through all of that, they had still reached the Champions League final, twice. Everyone knew that if they just stopped messing around it was game over for everyone else, so when they went and spent a club record 27 million pounds signing some Spanish kid with a career high of 13 open play goals in La Liga and no experience in European competitions, everyone thought that after Fernando Morientes this would be just another Fernando. But what they could not understand was why, back in Spain, despite the record fee, there were hundreds of Atletico fans showing up to the club offices to protest the player's departure as if they had lost their own son, that's the thing they were missing, Torres was not just your average golden boy, he was El Nino, he was literally a child when the legends of his talent began spreading through the country like wildfire, as the story goes, when Atletico Madrid scouted him he was immediately put to practice several age groups above his own, however he was so shy he would not tell anyone his name, so whenever the older players would see such a tiny kid they'd always start jokingly asking around quien es el nino, but inevitably once the training session ended they'd be making the same question but in a completely different tone, they'd be scared, who is the kid? And that's the question that haunted Spanish football over the next decade, because the kid had a professional contract and a 3 million euro buyout clause at the age of 15, because when Atletico got relegated, lost all their star players and watched their own president get arrested, it was the kid who they turned to as their savior, the one they made their captain at 19 years of age, the one who made Spain European champions not once but twice as both under 16 and under 19, both times as the top scorer and player of the tournament, always scoring the winning goal in the final, and yet, and maybe the most important for the Atletico fans, it was the kid who was now only taking the risk of moving to the premier league because he refused to join Barcelona Real no matter how many times they tried to sign him. Still, the funny thing is, arriving at Liverpool, Torres had the same problems that he had as a kid, as he said it himself, in my first season, 80% of the players did not know who I was and I looked so boyish, most assumed I couldn't play football, they all thought they could bully me but that only made it easier, so much so that, on his Anfield debut against Chelsea, it took him only 16 minutes to put the whole league in check, in his own words, when I scored, I knew right then and there that I would get more than 20 goals that season, that I could do everything I wanted on a pitch, I used to think that I could fly, and soon, so did everyone else, already on his second game he grabbed an assist, by his third he scored a wonderful brace, repeatedly slicing through the opponent's defense almost as if they weren't even there and, in just his 5th start, he was already grabbing his first hat trick. Pace, power, technique and a ridiculous sense of opportunity, football had rarely seen a striker with that much confidence, it was like he'd been tailor made for the premier league. By the winter market, he was already on 19 goal contributions in just 21 starts and he was still catching momentum, so in February, against Middlesbrough, he dribbled a keeper for his first goal and then blasted another from outside the box before baiting both the keeper and centre back to complete his hat trick. Still, even the league's player of the month award clearly did not satisfy his hunger because in the next game at Anfield, even though Benitez had already warned the press that he had gone down with the flu and could not play, when the hour arrived, despite resistance from the staff, he was there, and sake or not, Torres watched his team go behind 9 minutes in and score not once, not twice, but 3 times secure a 3-2 to win, and make himself the first player to score hat tricks at Anfield since 1946, getting a standing ovation as he left the pitch. In fact, he had 2 more goals over the next 2 games than he had done it, 20 league goals, the first Liverpool player to reach that mark since Robbie Fowler in 96, not even Ballon d'Or Michael Owen had managed that, and yet I've not even mentioned what he had done in the Champions League. Having already scored 3 goals in 4 group stage matches that same month, Torres scored at the San Siro with absolute arrogance to knock Inter out, then he blasted in an even more impressive strike to do the same to Arsenal, but in the semis, after he scored again to send Chelsea into extra time, Sami Hüppiä conceded the most unnecessary penalty and lost the game for his team. Let me tell you, if Liverpool won that game, that final could have been a Ballon d'Or decider, yet it just didn't happen. Instead, with 2 more absolute worldies in the last 2 matches of the season, Torres broke Roger Hunt's 44 year old record for the most consecutive games scoring at Anfield and brought his season's tally up to 33, breaking Vani Stelrooy's record for the most goals scored in a debut season, all of that without ever taking a penalty. He was averaging 0.85 open play goals per 90, before him only Andy Cole had reached a higher peak and that man held the goal scoring record for almost 30 years. How Torres ended up going unrewarded that season is a travesty, I can only assume that Cesc Fabregas took the young player of the year because most voters saw Torres as Ronaldo's direct rival for the main award rather than a young player, but that wasn't even his most frustrating near miss. In the 5 months that were left until the voting of the Ballon d'Or closed, despite Torres popping off at the Euros and scoring Spain's only goal against Germany, taking the final's men of the match award and bringing the trophy back to his own country for the first time in 44 years, then he was hit with 3 different hamstring injuries, all picked up while out with the Spanish national team, even leading Benitez himself to question the competence of their medical staff and hurting his momentum enough that once the ceremony took place, he wasn't even second. Torres was the first victim of the Ronaldo and Messi era, and the worst was that with those same injuries forcing him to miss 95 days, robbing him of the precious playing time he needed to keep Liverpool at the top of the table and himself in the golden boot race, despite him finishing the year with a much higher goal rate than anyone else in the country, despite him pushing himself as far as taking painkiller injections before his Champions League knockout games and somehow still opening the score against both Real Madrid and Chelsea, in the end, there was still a 4 point gap between them and United and no matter if that was the closest Liverpool had gotten to a title since the foundation of the Premier League, they were still trophyless, and the worst was yet to come. Listen, at the time, despite the general belief being that with such a strong core behind Torres, it was only a matter of time before they won it all, the reality is that Liverpool were about to be victims of the nastiest of inside jobs. You see, precisely 100 days before they signed Torres, David Morris, the man who had owned Liverpool for 16 years, had been pressured to sell the club as the board believed he was simply not capable of financing their new stadium. Meanwhile, in his place arrived two American investors, Tom Hicks and George Gillette, and they promised two things, to start the construction of that infamous new stadium within 60 days and that they would not do a glazers, but that could not have been more false. Not only was that stadium never built, but the two almost immediately turned on each other, not just causing chaos within the board, but bringing it into the locker room almost immediately, threatening to sack Benitez with no apparent reason, so much that, midway through Torres' debut season, they were already fans protesting the takeover. And that was before they realized the biggest crime their new owners had committed. They had, without a doubt, done a glazers. Much like the other American owners who sent Manchester United nose diving towards their banter era, these two had bought Liverpool, only to immediately take a 350 million pound loan in the club's name in order to pay themselves back for the money they had spent acquiring it and finance any future signings. But guess what, now, two years later, not only was that money gone, but they owed 40 million in interest, so, just as Torres renewed his contract believing there'd be a future at the club, the fire sale started. Xabi Alonso was sold to Real Madrid and no replacement was signed, meaning now, Torres would be wasting the best form of his career trying to keep a sinking ship afloat. Despite opening the season with 9 goal contributions in 8 starts, culminating in a ridiculous hat trick that put him at the top of the goalscorers table and earned him another player of the month award as the Guardian labelled him priceless, Liverpool had become so dependent on Torres that after he went down with a groin injury and watched his team lose both of their next two games without him, he insisted on playing against Man United even though, in his own words, I had so much pain whenever I tried to shoot across my body that I literally had no option but to always aim at the near post. And guess what, he scored the winner with a shot at the near post, because as Benitez said, everyone could see he was not 100%, but 80% of Torres is all you need. However, they'd paid a price for that, because even if all was fine, after they was forced to get surgery in January, so fine in fact that after scoring on his first start, he then went on a run of 9 goal contributions in just 4 games, at one point scoring or assisting all 4 goals in a 4-1 win over Portsmouth, the reality is that Liverpool seemingly could not score a goal unless he had a hand in it, with the man himself admitting to the public that they needed 4 or 5 top class players if they even wanted to compete, since after all they were down in 7th place despite Torres averaging 0.96 goals per 90, the highest ever seen in the Premier League and inevitably it happened. Having already been subbed off the previous match as Benitez admitted that Torres was simply exhausted, then 10 minutes into a game against Benfica, Torres jumped for a header and as he fell, he felt something clicking in his knee, yet believing the Europa League could be the silver lining in their dreadful season, he kept playing, even scoring a brace, but half an hour after the game, the swelling in his knee looked so severe that when flights were cancelled because of a volcanic eruption in Iceland, he literally got someone to drive him all the way to Barcelona to see an expert, and once there, the perfect storm took place. That same day, Liverpool's owners failed to make the payments on their loans and the banks finally forced their hand, only offering an extension after the owners agreed to put the club back up for sale, it was basically either sell or we'll bankrupt the whole club, so in the wake of those news, as Torres had to decide whether to prioritize his club or his country, his decision was clear, even if you have to remove the meniscus entirely, you have to do it, no matter the price, I have to play at the world cup because I know we will win it. At first, Del Bosque optimistically claimed that the goal was to get him ready for the final, but after a defeat in the opening game, Torres was on a starting 11 5 days later, even if the next morning they'd have to drain fluid from his knee. In the end, they won it, they were world champions and Torres even had a hand in the winning goal, but of course, he also ruptured his left thigh, so as the others celebrated, the doctor found Torres in the locker room with a blank expression, all he could say was, this was not how I'd imagine it would be to become a world champion, suffice to say, nothing was ever the same. Suddenly, Torres found himself in a post Benitez Liverpool, where Mascherano was quite literally leaving new manager Roy Hodgson on voicemail as he negotiated a move out to Barcelona, and after 2 months of the worst form we'd ever seen from him, the club was finally sold, bringing in new director Damian Kamoli, who didn't just repeatedly remind him of how much his potential sale could increase Liverpool's options in the transfer market, but despite being already 27 years old, they refused to promise him there'd be any trophies in the coming years. In his own words, no ambition, no Xabi, no Mascherano, no Benitez, no project, nothing, we were so close to being the best in Europe and suddenly all I knew about Liverpool was lost. So, feeling left behind, once Chelsea, who had been trying to sign him since back in the Atletico days, came in with a 50 million pound offer that would break the British transfer record, he let Kamoli have his wish. However, after the transfer, in order to avoid backlash from the fans, the new Liverpool board painted the situation as if Torres had forced the move himself, as he said, they stabbed me in the back, I was presented to the public as a traitor. He had the fans burning his shirts on live TV, even Gerrard refused to look him in the eye the next time they met. That was the final blow, as he'd eventually admit, from then on I started playing against my former self, I felt every game was me against the Fernando Torres from Liverpool, but he was far too broken, both mentally and physically, he just couldn't win. And as he closed out his final 4 months of the season with only a single goal for his new club, the world had already made up their minds, Torres was not only a traitor, but now also a flop. So, the next season, even if he'd put down 30 goal contributions for club and country, scoring maybe the most important goal in Chelsea's history up till then, to beat Guardiola's Barcelona and put them in the final that would bring them their first ever title, even if he'd show up again a month later scoring and assisting in the final of the Euros, taking the tournament's golden boot as Spain won their third consecutive tournament, it didn't matter. Even if, in the meantime, one of Liverpool's lawyers had literally admitted during court procedures that the sale of Torres had been planned all along, the character assassination he'd been a target of simply could not be undone. So, no matter if the following season he'd be reunited with Benítez, instantly becoming Chelsea's top scorer and getting an incredible 6 goals in 6 games to lead him to an Europa League title, after a season under Mourinho he'd be living through the backdoor and after a long move to AC Milan that collapsed after just 9 matches, despite Atletico coming to his rescue, offering him what felt like a drawn out victory lap, in the end his final words to the fans would still be, thanks for giving me so much and sorry for giving you so little.