El Niño, the wonder man:
If you love football both on the club or national team level, you should by now be familiar with the name Fernando Torres. A dear El Niño (meaning the kid in Spanish) ‘the wonder boy’ for the Spanish people and a striker per excellent for the die-hard Liverpool Football Club of England fans, Torres have already proved that he knows his onions! Torres joined Liverpool from Atletico Madrid for a whopping sum of £20 million - a club record transfer fee - in 2007 after having scored 75 goals in 174 La Liga appearances. By the end of his first season at Anfield (Liverpool’s F.C. Home) he scored more than 20 league goals, a feat achieved only by Robbie Fowler in 1995 – 96 football season. December 2009 saw him made another history in Anfield by being the fastest player to score 50 league goals. What more could be said?
His impeccable calculation and strike is one that every defender dreads. Torres has achieved so many feats which am not ready to list here, but I really duff my hat for this unassuming and dear striker as a phenomenon in the football world. For those of you who might doubt my statement or say that he has not reached the level of being called a football phenomenon, know it that he is just 26 years. If you know how tight and physical the English Premier League is, you will understand that he has archived more compared with his likes in the Spanish, German or Italian Leagues.
Some pointers that highlights that he is going to be a legend are as follows. Do you remember the only goal that the Spanish Team used to silence the extremely organized and disciplined German Machine at the UEFA Euro 2008 and won the title, it was scored by El Niño. Do you remember the timely calculated movement and strike Torres made between the defender Philipp Lahm and the goal keeper Jens Lehmann at the 33rd minute? Impeccable! I don’t think that the German Football fans will ever forget this embarrassing moment. Most recently, he silenced the tough and self acclaimed English Premier League winner, Chelsea Football Club and stopped their seven match unbeaten run by scoring a brace – the only goals of the match, again! According to Chelsea Manager, Carlo Ancelotti, “He (Fernando Torres) scored two fantastic goals” The first goal was awesome and the second… sublime! Now we know that Chelsea is not invincible, at least not this season and probably not with Torres fit and starting the Liverpool line-up.
What else could I say, we have seen the CR9s, Ronny’s, and Henrys in the English Premier League but Torres is one guy that knows when to score the goal that matters. That is a sign of a legend and the Liverpool Fans know that once you tag Steven Gerald and Torres, you will never walk alone, at least not in Anfield! With 76 goals so far for Liverpool, history beckons more for El Niño. One piece of advice for the striker I admire, keep yourself off injuries and give us more sublime goals.