| Madrid-based journalist Sid Lowe reports from the Spanish capital on the impact Fernando Torres's debut season at Anfield is having back in his homeland.
Half time at the Santiago Bernabéu, Real Madrid versus Lazio, the final group game of this season's Champions League. 80,000 people reach for their tin foil sandwiches, giant batons of bread stuffed with ham, and glug from flasks of wine. High above them, at each end of the stadium, the giant screens flicker, with the highlights from the night's other games. A slim, athletic blond-haired striker in red dashes past two defenders and coolly slots the ball in the net.
The bloke next to me stirs. "Bloody hell!" he says, "was that Fernando Torres?!" Uh-huh. There is a pause. "I hope we don't get him in the next round", he adds. And, with that mixture of incredulity and fear, he had said it all.
Torres had long been recognised as one of Spain's great talents, singled out from a very young age, having scored 64 goals for Atlético Madrid's youth teams before the age of thirteen and been named the best Under 15 footballer in the country, as well as winning the European Championships, top scoring in the tournament and grabbing the winner in the final, at both U16 and U19 level.
He was Atlético's top scorer every season he played at the Vicente Calderón, and only once in five seasons has any other outfield player at the club finished with a better average rating, while he netted 75 times in 173 games, twice finishing as La Liga's top scoring Spaniard and never failing to get into double figures. Over the last four seasons only Samuel Eto'o and David Villa scored more league goals.
Better still for Atlético fans, he was one of them - a rojiblanco born and bred, ever since his granddad introduced him to the Calderón - and had resisted the advances of the league's best clubs, sticking with his team through thick and thin.
Trouble was, it was mostly thin. For too long, Atlético have been "el pupas", the jinxed one. A club where every year the fans tell themselves "this year is going to be our year" only to have to accept that, in fact, this year is not going to be their year after all. One that kept on inventing increasingly bizarre, almost ludicrously implausible ways of blowing up just when it looked like this year might actually be their year.
Sporting director García Pitarch once admitted "it's ridiculous really that Fernando is still with us". But while Atlético's fans saw truth in his words, the striker - captain from the age of nineteen, a fan of the club - was inextricably associated with the club. In fact, he was the club.
That meant two things. On the one hand, that Atlético's failings became Torres's failings, not aided by the fact that a pro-Real Madrid press gleefully giggled every time Atlético collapsed. And, on the other, that he was forced to withstand almost all the pressure on his own - both on and off the pitch. No wonder that when he left the Calderón, Torres complained that for too long he had been forced to take on too much responsibility; that joining Liverpool was not just a privilege but "a relief".
There was little doubting Torres's talent, but for some he had also become something of a comedy figure, maligned for some incredible misses and, above all, for Atlético's failures - especially against Real Madrid. In ten games against their local rivals Torres had scored just once and his team had never won; before the 2006 world cup 80% of fans polled by the newspaper Marca, most of them doubtlessly Madrid fans, said that he should not be in the side. Madrid fans used to laugh at him and the media followed suit. They would look forward to Atlético's capitulation against their city rivals, scoffing loudly at the foolishness of those rivals who dared to believe, at those who told them: "this time, Torres will score, you'll see."
And yet here, in the Santiago Bernabéu, was a Madrid fan saying he hoped not to have to face Torres, expressing his disbelief at the wonderful goal the young Madrileño had just scored. Just as fans in Spain have been shocked by the fact that he has racked up seventeen so far this season. Sure, he could score goals - and some fantastic goals too - for Atlético but he was not as prolific as he has so far proven at Anfield. The turn around has been dramatic, from both Torres and his Spanish critics.
Torres was liberated by leaving Madrid. Rafa Benítez's assumption that the rut into which he had run was Atlético themselves has proven justified. As Torres recently admitted to FourFourTwo, there were too many people at Atlético who hid behind him, too much responsibility laden onto his shoulders. The English game, he added, suits him. It is faster, looser, more direct, the defences are more open. He is not asked to play such a part in building moves, just be ready to finish them off; his physical presence suits the Premier League. It has enabled him to become a better player.
It has also enabled the Spanish to admit that he is a better player. By leaving Atlético and joining Liverpool - "Spanish Liverpool" - he has become everyone's property, lauded by madridistas and atléticos alike. By playing brilliantly, and doing it for a club that suffers none of the preconceptions that Atlético do, not stigmatised by the pro-Real Madrid media, his success has been warmly received. "Torres," says the former Barcelona striker Julio Salinas, "is proving that he is a superstar."
The point is that he had to prove it. And there is no doubt that he has done so. For those who defended him before, his success has aided their case. "The critics were right," wrote Tomás Guasch for the sports daily AS, sarcasm dripping from the page, "Torres isn't much of a goalscorer!" For those who weren't sure of him, his success has been a welcome surprise, proof perhaps that the problem was his former club, not his form.
For Atlético fans, it has been particularly gratifying because it has come without the bitterness of their side collapsing in his wake - without Torres the rest of the squad has finally stepped up and the team is flying at last. Everyone has been a winner. But it is not just them. Torres's success has become everyone's success, a source of a more general pride. He is one of our boys, doing good over there.
Torres's goals are shown on every news bulletin on every channel. Match reports are not match reports so much as Torres-reports and they have even taken to translating his Spanish nickname "El Niño" and calling him - in English - Kid Torres.
Torres news makes it into the papers every day, while television coverage of the English league has become television coverage of Torres, even when - quite honestly - it shouldn't be. Last week, state channel TVE showed Middlesbrough versus Liverpool, rather than Chelsea versus Spurs. "You won't much have enjoyed the game," admitted the commentator, pretty much summing it up, "but I'm sure you enjoyed Torres's fantastic goal."
As one columnist put it the following day: "Torres has shown that he did exactly the right thing leaving. In fact, he should have joined Liverpool sooner."
Anfield would no doubt agree.
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