Feature: What Happened to Torres?

We have witnessed the great finish in the beginning of the second half against Man Utd on Sunday; we also witnessed the ‘miss of the decade’ later in the game, both done by the same person, the 50 millions Fernando Torres. Somehow, media become more caution about the ‘El Niño is back’ headlines, because of all the false hopes earlier. So, where should we begin?

I don’t think anyone actually knows what went wrong with Torres. Yes, we saw his horrible performance during World Cup, and his unproductive performance in font of goal ever since, but no, we don’t know what happened to him.

The World Cup disaster can be seen as a side-effect of injury, even a player is fully recovered, sometimes, they need time to adjust their body and scoring is more of a feeling, once you got it and started scoring, you keep on doing it. Some strikers may take longer than others to have that feeling back, but it comes back to them eventually, and they can find their way back to goals. As for Torres, it seems like it hasn’t came to him yet. He did score, but his goal were so far apart that, even a defender scored more goals than him during the same period of time.

If his goal for Liverpool after World Cup indicated he had recovered from injury, then what is the thing that stopped him from scoring again? The pressure? The expectations? Or the transfer rumors? He should have been able to deal with pressure and expectations, as one of the world famous footballers, so I guess it was the transfer that was bothering him. He wanted to leave Liverpool so badly that he filed a transfer request and left The Reds, never thought that Liverpool is actually better without him.

So transfer problem settled, he went to Chelsea, a club that he believes will bring him titles, with a 50 millions price tag that made him one of the top 10 transfer of all time, he should be happy to score then. Yet, he wasted countless chances before goal until he met the relegated West Ham. Everyone thought he final overcame the high expectations that came with the price, the pressure from people who want to see him fail, and would start scoring again, he stopped again after the West Ham game, despite the trust that manager and teammates had for him. Everyone still closely follow his actions, looking for some familiarities with the old Torres, but nothing much remind people of the golden boy.

Slowly, fans lost faith in him, Spain coach Del Bosque put him on the stand, Chelsea manager warned him for his place, and the next second, Torres is getting better, some actions reminded us of the old him. Maybe everyone was taking the wrong approaches all along: giving him chance during the World Cup when he wasn’t fit; insist to start him when he was underperform; reassuring his first team place when there are a lot of players out there who deserve the place more, being too protective about him all those time and none of these made him played better. Footballers need motivations, although some media kept criticizing him, fans were annoyed by his underperformance, but the coaches still believe in him, so why would Torres bother about goals when he can still starts while he plays like shit? Only when his position is threatened, he knows he has to find his way back. But of course, this was a goal that came after months, the question remains: Is Torres really back this time??