Torres by Luca Caioli Page B

Fuenlabrada, whose physique and strength someone compares to a sabre, with others recalling idol, Marco Van Basten, his favourite singers (Andrés Calamaro) and films (Roberto Benigni’s
La Vita è Bella
).
    A little more than a year later, the Torres Generation will repeat the celebrations in Norway. In-between, there was the black hole of the Under-17 World Cup, which took place in September 2001 in Trinidad & Tobago. Spain arrived, fresh from their European triumph, but two bad defeats against Burkina Faso (0-1) and Argentina (2-4) left them in third place in their group and they did not make the quarter-finals. Fernando got just one goal – in the first half of the match against Oman. But he came back with a vengeance in July in the second leg of the Under-19 Euro qualifying tie against Macedonia. He scored two goals to qualify the side for the finals in Norway from 21–27 July 2002.
    José Camacho, the manager of the senior national side, decided to quit after Spain’s exit from the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan (at the hands of joint host South Korea, managed by Guus Hiddink). On 2 July, the Spanish Football Federation appointed Iñaki Sáez as his successor, but before getting down to work with the grown-ups, he wanted to finish the job with the juniors: ‘I had taken them through to qualification, so I wanted to go with them to the finals,’ he says, now retired from the Federation. After a long round of golf and a restorative shower in his holiday home in Tenerife, he talked with pleasure about that July in Norway and Fernando Torres: ‘The year before, he had made his debut with Atlético Madrid’s first team and with Luis Aragonés as manager. That season, he had been important for getting the team promoted to the Primera División. He was very good and stood out because of his speed and strength, qualities which, at that age, always create problemsfor opponents. He was full of promise – a youngster who’d always scored a lot of goals in all the leagues he’d played in. One could see that he had a lot of potential and that there was still room to improve various aspects of his game. Our objective, as coaches of the national team, was to improve how he received the ball with his back to his opponent and to play it as quickly as possible. In other words, that he would be able to use to the full the enormous skills that he had. In the dressing room, he was a very cheerful lad, an important person. He symbolised the attack and his team-mates had confidence in him because he always got them out of trouble. He got on tremendously well with Iniesta and you could see this on the pitch. And I saw it in the final.’
    But staying in chronological order, there were three more matches to play before arriving at the final. The first, a Group A tie against the Czech Republic, finished 1-1. Fernando is not on the score-sheet. In the second, Iñaki’s youngsters find themselves up against the hosts – a straightforward game because the Norwegians, apart from honest effort, commitment and a competitive spirit, don’t put up much resistance. The first goal comes in the 22nd minute, when the keeper can only parry Torres’ rocket of a shot and José Antonio Reyes (later of Arsenal) is on hand to pick up the loose ball and score. Nine minutes after the restart, Iniesta feeds Fernando, who beats Larsen to make it 2-0, with Reyes scoring again in the 68th minute to close the proceedings at 3-0. In the last match they meet Slovakia, who had put five past the Czech Republic and scored another five against Norway to give them a maximum six points and make them the highest-scoring team in the tournament. The only result that will see Spain through to the final is a win.
    However, things start going wrong almost immediately. A free-kick on the edge of the area and Cech finds theback of the net off the left-hand post: 1-0. Then, just before the interval, Sergio equalises, thanks to a calamitous error by Konecny, one of