Torres Read Free Page B

Madrid.
    Monday, 2 July: he flies to Liverpool after a meeting with Bahia International, the agency that has represented his interests for several years. Here, he spends around 40 hours holed-up in an apartment the club keeps for such situations. It’s forbidden to go outside, go for a walk, a meal, or anything. Liverpool want to keep the transfer completely secret.
    Tuesday, 3 July: from the apartment Fernando goes directly to a car parked in a space below the building, and from there to undergo a medical examination. He’s proclaimed fit and ready to join up. And then the last return flight between the city of the Beatles and the Spanish capital. El Niño, the most expensive signing in Liverpool’s history, the most expensive transfer of a Spanish footballer abroad since Gaizka Mendieta (sold in 2001 by Valencia to Lazio for 42 million Euros) first wants to say goodbye to the people he knows in Madrid. It’s only that night that a photographer gets a shot of Torres on his way to the airport …
    On 4 July, the Spanish press say their farewells to Fernando. Mundo Deportivo uses the verses of The Doors song, ‘The End’: ‘This is the end. Beautiful friend. This is the end. My only friend, the end.’ A sad farewell in Spain, a welcome full of hope in England. The desire of the English media is that The Kid becomes a legend at Anfield. For Torres, it’s the first day of a new life. A truly strange day. In the morning he leaves home and in the afternoon discovers his dreams have become reality.

Chapter 3
The culprit of his success
    Conversation with Liverpool manager, Rafa Benítez
    The gaffer is pretty tied up with a whole pile of things on his plate. He’s putting the finishing touches to the 2008–09 season, which finished a few days before, and beginning the next. As usual, he’ll have a summer of hard work. And this year even more, now that – thanks to a contract until 2014 – he has complete freedom regarding the buying and selling of players and in all sporting matters. He’ll have to take the right decisions and sign the right players to reinforce the Reds. To buy and sell with more than £30 million in his pocket. With this money, it’s not easy to bring in the best footballing components, but Rafa is used to challenges and overcoming the odds. He wants to do it as soon as possible so that the newcomers can make themselves at home in the pre-season and get familiar with how the club plays, in order to go for the league title, which they have not won since the 1989–90 season. It will be another ‘Rafalution’ – the Red revolution of Rafa.
    In Anfield they are used to this because, since arriving in 2004 from Valencia, the Madrid-born 49-year-old has changed Liverpool. He has brought it up to date. Over two seasons, he reorganised Melwood, changing the preparations, the training, the players’ diet and the way the team plays (and whoever accuses him of being defensive, heresponds by pointing to the 100-plus goals they scored last season). He has set up a scouting and talent-spotting system that enables him to keep tabs on around 14,000 players across the globe. And above all, he has returned Liverpool to the European elite, winning the Champions League and European Super Cup in 2005 and getting to another Champions League final in 2007, when they lost to Milan. ‘He’s demonstrated that he’s hungry for success,’ said Tom Hicks, one of the club’s owners. Rafa is a man who lives and breathes football and works on football 24 hours a day if needed. As he’s said on many occasions, he wants to help create a new chapter in the legendary history of the club. Gerrard, the captain, and Torres, El Niño, are two essential elements of his sporting project. Let’s see how he came to choose Fernando …
    Why did you decide on Torres as a future signing for Liverpool?
    ‘Fundamentally, it was based on information in our possession, thanks to the tracking we do on many players, his excellent skills