by Luca Caioli
Javier elaborates:
‘To tell the truth, we did in fact have two defeats but they were friendlies. The first was at Navalcarnero, just before the start of the league season and the other against a group of girls – who were bigger than our lot. They gave us a real hiding and we left the pitch in complete silence, with our pride wounded. It was the first time we’d played in a closed sports hall on a wooden parquet surface. We were used to cement. Just about all the school indoor football pitches in our area were cement. We weren’t a school team though and we didn’t have anywhere to train either, so we used what everyone here calls the Plaza Blanca (White Square), a hard area above a car park where, every time there was a match, we had to find something that we could use for a goal. Or sometimes we used the playing area of the Colegio Francisco de Quevedo, which was Fernando’s school. We used to train one or two days a week with a match on the Saturday morning. Afterwards, all of us went to the cafetería and they invited us for Coca-Cola and crisps. We ended up throwing everything around and then we ran outside to play football again in the Parque Granada.’
So there was a lot of football at that time, then?
‘Absolutely’, continues Javier. ‘There was no Playstation, Nintendo, consoles, or video games – or 1,001 TV channels. So in the evening, after homework, we went outside, together with our nocilla (a hazlenut and chocolate spread) sandwich. We would sit in front of the local chemist and decide what to do – football, bottle tops, spinning tops, picture cards and marbles were our favourites. We played football in every possible space – in the Plaza Blanca, the street behind the school and between one building and another where there was a bit of actual grass. Imagine that – what a luxury! Although one should point out that the two bits of garden were separated by a cement kerb, but that didn’t bother us. We used to jump over it just for the pleasure of stepping on the grass. The only two problems were Mr Miguel and the security guard. They were nightmares for us because one of the goals was just below Mr Miguel’s window. He was a bit of a strong character and we were scared of him. After we’d fired off a few shots he would appear at the window and begin to shout. We got frightened and used to run off. Our other dread was the security guard who used to patrol the zone, checking everything was in order. We were scared of him as well because it was forbidden to tread on the grass and if he caught us, he would take the ball off us. So if someone warned us he was coming, we would just pretend to be sitting around, twiddling our thumbs and keep the ball hidden.
‘I don’t know how many times we managed to avoid getting caught by the caretaker at the Colegio Tierno Galván school. In the evening, when no one was around, we used to jump over the fence to play on the indoor football surface. Then they put up a higher fence but we still managed to get over until one of us got stuck there. Even in the swimming pool there was a bit of grass and, secretly, we would take a few small balls in until the people who were sunbathing there started to complain.’
Alexis continues:
‘Football was our obsession. One thing we really enjoyed was taking corners. We would do a throw-in from an imaginary corner flag and either shoot or head-in. Then there was the ‘German goal’, which you scored after keeping the ball in the air without letting it touch the ground. The winner would be the first to score 10 and for that game there was no punishment, which was not the case with ‘the bottom’ …
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 wha
t’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 tr
ophies 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.’