Read Online Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King by Luca Caioli - Free Book Online Page A

quick-fire goals, one after the other, and runs to tell his grandfather.
    The following year, the shots of him used by regional television channel,
Telemadrid
, always show him at Brunete on the pitch against Milan, tall and thin, with his blond bob haircut and the Number 9 on his back. Fernando puts away penalties that the keeper can’t get hold of, dribbles past opponents even with a backheel and scores to make it 3-0 and then 4-0 in a perfect counter-attacking move going round the onrushing keeper.
    ‘Fernando was a born winner. He also wanted to win in training. I was 39, I had to quit playing football but I was in good enough condition to run with them,’ remembers Rangel, ‘I enjoyed making bets with him regarding a game, penalties, or who would score the most goals from a free-kick. And Fernando was really competitive. At the end of training, he would be waiting with his sports bag to inform me, ‘Coach, you owe me a Coca-Cola for what I’ve won from you.’ He was very bright, very smart.’
    And Rangel is keen to stress, like Briñas, the importance of grandfather Torres Sanz: ‘A fantastic family, very close and well-balanced, which helped him enormously to be a footballer.’ His parents, José and Flori, his brother Israel and Mari Paz, his sister, help him in every way. On many occasions, his father has to get permission from work to take him from Fuenlabrada to Orcasitas, where he trains. His mother waits for him in front of the school gates in the wind and the rain, goes with him on the bus or on the train to the ground, and waits for the training to end to bring him back home. And without ever insisting or demanding that he become a professional. On the contrary, she tells him many times that ‘if you are tired or you don’t want to play, tell me and we won’t go again’. His brother and sister also assume their responsibilities for the 15-kilometre (about 10 miles) daily trip. They have to study and do their homework sitting on the terraces at the ground. Years divided between school and training, with matches at the weekend. The best thing is when Fernando joins Atlético’s residential Colegio Amanecer school, just outside the centre of Madrid where, today, around 30 youngsters between the ages of fifteen and eighteen study up to the Spanish equivalent of A-levels. ‘Fernando was a student who knew how to combine books with the ball,’ recalls school coordinator Rafael Bravo. ‘His parents wrote us a very emotive letter when Fernando got his
Bachillerato
(equivalent to A-levels).’
    A good student and an excellent footballer, so much so that he regularly ends up being the youngest in each of his Atlético junior teams. He plays with youngsters who are one, two or even three years older than him. It is a way of growing up more quickly and a way of learning more rapidly the rules of football because the older ones are stronger technically and physically and better-prepared mentally. Fernando works his way up through the junior ranks. Manolo Rangel is his teacher for three seasons.
    Then it is Pedro Calvo’s turn to take charge of him for a year. Fernando is fourteen. How was he? ‘His manner and professionalism were the same as they are now,’ explains 40-year-old Calvo, enjoying a cafe
latte
in a central Madrid bar. ‘He was already the team captain but the responsibilities didn’t weigh him down. You would tell him that we eat at two o’clock and that everyone should come properly turned out. And ten minutes before time, he would be there with his team-mates, all properly dressed. He was always thinking about the group. He was very humble and he didn’t like too much praise. He didn’t get nervous, a normal thing at that age. He didn’t get angry. I remember that once I blamed him for the behaviour of the team and, instead of giving me a dirty look, he thought the problem over and it never went further than the dressing room. In a footballing sense he was the same as now: rapid,