EL Nino speaks on rotation

Fernando Torres: Rotation is a fact of Mersey life
from the The Times, February 19, 2008 by Guillem Balague

source from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article3392980.ece



On the way to the interview room, Fernando Torres starts chatting away with one of the members of the Liverpool staff, one whose accent reveals his Merseyside roots and is difficult to understand for new students of the English language. The way Torres answers suggests a complete appreciation of everything that has been said to him. He even laughs at a half-baked joke.

Before the interview, I say to him: “Say 'work.'” “Werk,” he replies. Didier Drogba and Thierry Henry struggled for a year to come to terms with the Premier League and everything that surrounds it, but Torres, with a newly acquired Scouse accent, has needed only a few months.

“The effort from my part has been minimal,” he said. “The big effort has come from people at the club. They welcomed me with open arms, helped make everything much easier so I only have to think about playing football. I didn't have to worry much about getting a house, a car, a language teacher, those little but important details. My team-mates, the ones I knew already and the new ones, made me feel as I have been here all my life. I have enjoyed myself so much since I arrived, nothing seems to be an effort.”

A tally of 18 goals in 29 appearances in all competitions is an excellent return for the £26.5million that the club paid Atlético Madrid for him. Not everyone, including key members of staff, expected such an immediate impact. “I think, though, he would score a similar amount of goals if he was at Barcelona or Real Madrid,” one of his best friends, who remembers that Torres's most impressive matches used to be against Barcelona, said. “A team [Barcelona] that played happy football, with lots of spaces. In England, almost everybody plays like that.”

Torres appreciates the role of Steven Gerrard in his success. “The striker feeds from players who decide to make passes that most of us do not try,” he said. “Gerrard is one of those guys. He has an eye to see the line of pass and my run at the same time. And, certainly, I benefit from the direct football played here. There is not so much passing, the excessive control you find in Spain.

“You don't need 30 touches to get to the box. Here, after four or five, you put your cross in or your shot. There are more chances of a one-to-one or two-against-two and often what decides a match is not so much the work a team has put in but the quality of their players. Against the top teams, you must have order and put lots of work into it, but with others below us in the table the defining factor is the quality of players.”

This is a new Fernando Torres to the one who left La Liga, one who has learnt from previous mistakes. “Here, the boss [Rafael Benítez] asks me for one thing only and I have to do that,” he said. “Sometimes at Atlético, I wanted to do too much. Each one of us has his role on the pitch and no more. I used to play too far from the box and that is not where my game can harm the opposition.”

Torres's team-mates speak highly of him because they understand that not everybody is made to succeed in the hardest of leagues. “He is not afraid of the physical contact,” Xabi Alonso, his Spanish compatriot and Liverpool midfield player, said. “Rival defenders know he is not scared of them.”

Gerrard concurs. “In many matches, he has been kicked around, but he keeps going back for more,” he said. A member of staff chipped in: “He is probably the best player around with space in front of him.” Benítez, the Liverpool manager, nods his assent. “He has the strength and the ability to succeed here,” he said.

Torres has missed a month and a half with injuries and sat out the 2-1 defeat by Barnsley in the FA Cup fifth-round tie at Anfield on Saturday. Yet his contribution is valued as much as that of Gerrard, Lucas Leiva and José Manuel Reina, probably the only players to equal or improve their form of the previous season.

But are Torres's goals enough to turn around the fortunes of Liverpool after two decades without a league title? “The real Liverpool is the one that impressed earlier on,” he said. “We have to keep that level for longer. Those who do that fight for the league title and the ones who can't have to fight for the knockout competitions.

“We are a very uncomfortable team to play against, but we have dropped too many points. We didn't win a league match in January. We could find a thousand excuses, but that would be an easy exercise. The players could have done it better.

“There are matches where we had the impression that we have dropped points and others where we thought we had got something out of it by a pure miracle. We were lucky against Derby, but not so much against Wigan, for instance. Generally, we have dropped points where the top three haven't.”

But why were those points dropped? Is it a psychological blockage? Quality of the squad? Rotation? “Sometimes we felt superior and did not kill the games,” Torres said. “But if you look at the stats, this season is better than last season. The problem is that people asked us to win the Premier League this year. There is a progression, I don't think it's a bad season. We started wanting to win everything, but, as it progresses, you are forced to change your targets.”

Torres is surprised by the negativity linked to rotation. “When things don't go the way one wishes, people look for things to blame,” he said. “We have a manager with a philosophy that people knew before he came and one that has succeeded. It is very opportunistic to blame rotation for everything that goes wrong. It is not a problem for us. Liverpool have won a Champions League, FA Cup and so on with rotation. It is normal to rest. We players never want to, but if the manager says so, you have to. If everybody accepts that is the way forward, the atmosphere doesn't suffer.”

The impatience that has surrounded the club lately means that, suddenly, the Champions League and even the FA Cup are viewed as lesser in significance to that elusive league title. Torres does not share that sentiment. The Champions League first knockout round meeting with Inter Milan, the first leg of which is at Anfield tonight, has whetted his appetite.

“Even in training, everybody seems very switched on,” he said. “The Inter match is going to be very hard, but very watchable. I don't think there will be many goals and it will all be decided in the return leg. The key is how effective the strikers are. They used to say that Zlatan Ibrahimovic was not a regular goalscorer. This season, he is silencing his critics. He is one of the most in-form players in Europe.”

Torres finishes the conversation to go back to the rest of his day, a routine that consists of enjoying the company of his girlfriend and his dogs, a visit to Reina to chat or to watch some games. And maybe some time spent on the PlayStation.
Nothing describes better what Torres is like.

The rise of El Nino
The forward nicknamed El Niño — The Kid — was born in 1984 in a suburb of Madrid. A supporter of Atlético, he captained the side at the age of 19.

Atlético Madrid
Second division (2000-02): 40 appearances; 7 goals
La Liga (2002-07): 174 apps; 75 goals
Spanish Cup 24 apps; 7 goals
European games (all Intertoto Cup): 5 apps; 2 goals

Spain 46 apps; 15 goals

Liverpool
Premier League
Home 10 (plus 2 sub) appearances; 10 goals
Away 9 (1) apps; 2 goals
Champions League (incl qualifying round)
Home 2 apps; 2 goals
Away 2 (1) apps; 1 goal
Domestic cups
Home 1 app; 0 goal
Away 1 app; 3 goals
First-half goals 5
Second-half goals 13

Longest run without a goal Three games