Fernando-Torres

There are a select few men in world football that would walk into any team on the planet. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney are just a few examples of football’s elite and many fans would give their left leg to see one of these geniuses in their clubs colours. Fernando Torres is another professional who has the world at his feet and along with Didier Drogba and David Villa, the Spaniard is one of the most feared front men in football.

Torres began his career with Atlético Madrid, the club that he would make his name for and even in his days as a teenager the striker gained a reputation as a hot prospect and quickly became a regular for the Spanish side. Torres progressed fast in Madrid and as each season went by, the young Spaniard only got better. The 2003-04 season was a particular highlight for the striker as he netted an impressive 19 times in 35 league appearances. Torres was quickly becoming an invaluable asset to Atlético and the youngster was made club captain at just 19 years of age. Atlético had to fight off interest from sides across Europe, most notably Chelsea, who the striker allegedly turned down back in 2005.

However, it was only a matter of time before the prodigy moved to pastures new and in the summer of 2006, Liverpool broke transfer records, shelling out £25 million for the striker and the rest has been history.

To say Torres has taken the Premier League by storm would be an understatement. The Spanish international scored 24 goals in his first season with the Anfield club, including a number of hat-tricks. Speculation over whether or not the youngster could cut it in the Premier League quickly disappeared as Torres proved he had all the attributes to become a world conquering striker. His pace, strength and understanding of the game combined with his natural finishing ability make him every managers dream and the striker has netted 12 times already this season in what has been an injury struck campaign. It makes you wonder where the Merseysiders would be without El Nino.

The striker sends shivers down the spine of even the world’s best defenders and you only have to look at Nemanja Vidic to realise this. The Serbian defender picked up the Barclays Player of the Season award last year despite being made to look like an amateur by Torres in Liverpool’s famous 4-1 win at Old Trafford. Vidic has never been able to keep up with the pace of the Spaniard and has seen red in three consecutive matches against United’s arch rivals. He is one of a long list of defenders who fear the striker.

The issue of whether Torres is the world’s best is up to debate, with the likes of Drogba and his international partner Villa providing stern competition however, the skill of the striker cannot be doubted. He has recently become the fastest Liverpool player to reach 50 league goals and is breaking all sorts of goal scoring records at Anfield. He is a Premier League footballing genius.

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