It is not just the hair, blonder with each dye, that makes Fernando Torres stand out in the company of his countrymen. In a squad conspicuously short of six-footers, most look quite a way up to their centre-forward. The public already give him a status above any other Spanish footballer. As the squad left Santander for what they hope will be an absence of nearly a month, the loudest squeals from fans were for Torres, formerly El Niño. Now he has a right to be appreciated as El Adulto.
Torres does not naturally seek what Spaniards call protagonismo; he’s not a loudmouth attention-seeker and has a gentle, low-key way with autograph-hunters and those who want their photograph taken alongside him. He would not have appreciated that his team had been booed from the field in Santander at half-time the previous evening by their own public after a stultifying final preparation match - they beat the USA by a solitary late goal - but he used to hear far worse when he was the one man band, teenaged captain of Atletico Madrid. Besides, the vat of self-confidence Torres takes to the European Championship remains full.
He has just broken local records in Liverpool marking the impact of a new striker at a club that so prizes its No 9s: 24 goals in his debut Premier League season. And his national team are undefeated in 16 matches, winning all but two. Spain, like Liverpool, have their dogmas. If they are to win their first major championship since 1964, they will do it with elegance, with overwhelming possession and passing accuracy. “For us, the most important thing is to keep the ball as much as we can,” says Spain coach Luis Aragones. “We are a team that can find it hard to win the ball back.”
Aragones, 69, has been around the block, and if he seems set in his ways, it is because ways are set for him. “Idiosyncrasies exist in certain teams,” he says. “Barcelona have always played better-looking football. It so happens that Real Madrid tend to win more. The best counter-attacking team in Spain has tended to be Atletico.” And in England? “In England the pace of the game is very high,” says Aragones. “I like it, but I prefer the ball to be doing the fast moving, and sometimes the players. That’s what we are good at.”
So here’s the contradiction: Spain will stress the virtues of Spanish football while taking on the rest of the continent with the most expatriate XI in their history; at a pinch, five of their team could be footballers who work in England. Euro 2008 stands ready to applaud Spain for the elegance of their passing and swift geometry of their midfield exchanges, while audiences recovering from another breathless 10 months of the Premier League perk up at seeing leading figures from Liverpool and Arsenal’s last seasons wearing the red of España. Yet Cesc Fabregas, who drives the sweet machinery of Arsenal’s football, may not get into Aragones’s first lineup, against Russia on Tuesday. Liverpool’s Torres will, but must alter his game significantly.
“Spain’s style is slower with many more touches on the ball. With Liverpool everything is more direct,” says Torres. Which did he prefer? “The style of play with Liverpool suits me very well, but now I am with Spain and I have to adapt.” Adapt what? “Liverpool is a hard-working team and that gives you more time to pace yourself up front. I have teammates like [Dirk] Kuyt, who is out of this world with his physical effort. He does his work and some of mine, too. Maybe with Liverpool I get fewer chances in front of goal, but in a way, I have a better chance to convert them.” So what does the adaptation, from prolific Liverpool Red to Spain’s Roja, mean?
His goals for Liverpool would more likely come from crosses, he gives as an example, while those for Spain will be “a one-two in the penalty box, a piece of individual skill, maybe via a reverse pass. You have to be ready for that.” And the alteration, the distinction between the adrenalin of Anfield and the tension around Spain, the team who eternally wait to be the sum of their parts, remains one of these championships’ main intrigues. Will Spain be more worldly for their Premier League nous? Or less Spanish? Torres would like an amalgam of the two. And he’d like one extra piece of Liverpool to become Spanish these next three weeks. Which one? “Steven Gerrard, of course,” says Torres, smiling.
