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  But what was Fuenlabrada like and what is it like today?

  ‘In 1973, it was a rural town of 7,000 inhabitants. But in the final years of the Franco dictatorship, there was a lot of property speculation. They gave thousands of permits to build and by 1979, we had a population of 57,000. The town grew chaotically without any proper urban development plan. In the 1980s, Fuenlabrada was the subject of a major internal migration process. Lots of young people came from (the Spanish regions of) Andalucía, Galicia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha, looking for work and a place to live. They settled here, next to a small community of Polish immigrants.

  ‘In 1995, we were witness to a wave of immigration from the Maghreb region and then from Latin America at the end of the 1990s. Today, Fuenlabrada has 209,102 inhabitants, 15 per cent of whom are immigrants from outside the European Union. It’s the fourth biggest city in the Madrid region in terms of population. It accounts for 25 per cent of the region’s industry, above all furniture-making and metallurgy. We’ve got 22 industrial estates and 30 per cent of the region’s small and medium-sized businesses.

  ‘In the last decade, we have greatly improved the residents’ quality of life. In terms of transport and communications infrastructure, thanks to new roads, the regional Cercanías train network and the metro, Fuenlabrada is now closer to the capital. In terms of education and culture, we have 70 teaching centres and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos campus, four theatres, a library for every 35,000 inhabitants, six sports centres, a basketball team playing in the ACB (the top division of Spanish basketball) and a football team in the third division.

  ‘It’s a city, and a very different one from that which Fernando knew when he was small. His neighbourhood, the Parque Granada, at that time was almost a village, where everyone knew each other and where the majority of people had arrived only a short time before. If there’s something that hasn’t changed, it’s the fact that Fuenlabrada continues to be one of the youngest municipalities in the country.’

  José Torres – Pepe to his friends – arrived in this ‘dormitory city’, 22 kilometres (about 14 miles) from Madrid in the 1980s from Galicia. He was born less than 20 kilometres from Santiago de Compostela, the regional capital. José is the second of nine children of Claudio Torres and Maruja. ‘Our Pepe, who is now 59, began at the army barracks in Pontevedra and later joined the police. He was deputy-inspector and after two years in the Basque Country, he requested to be transferred to Madrid, to Fuenlabrada (a new station was opened in 1987). Now he’s retired,’ recalled Claudio Torres recently. In Madrid, he married Flori, who is from the city, and bought an apartment in the street of Calle Alemania. It’s here that their three children were born and grew up. Mari Paz, the oldest and eight years Fernando’s senior, has a law degree and today works for Bahía International. Israel, seven years older than Fernando, has followed in his father’s footsteps. He joined the police and was assigned to the security of María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, the deputy prime minister in the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

  ‘My parents weren’t expecting me. I arrived by chance,’ confessed El Niño some years ago. His brother and sister were already quite grown-up when the new arrival made his entrance. Attention centres on the little Fernando José Torres Sanz who, despite the normal petty jealousies, is welcomed by his two older siblings. In fact, Flori and José say that, with the arrival of Fernando, the older two become more settled.

  The most amusing anecdote from those early years is the fright his mother gets when he throws around 80,000 pesetas (about £400 at today’s values) out of the window. He was playing with a model toy in his parents’ bedroom. A lorry with a big trailer. He’d filled it with banknotes he’d found in a drawer and then … threw it out of the window. He liked to drop things to see where they ended up. Flori, working round-the-clock to look after the three children, had begun searching for the cash but couldn’t find it and had run out of places to look for it. She was desperate. She only realised what had happened when the neighbours knocked on the door to ask: ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen what’s fallen out of your window?’ She couldn’t imagine that her little ‘Fer’, as his friends call him, had done such a thing. El Niño was a bit naughty both in and outside the house. So much so that José and Flori decide, in a family meeting, to impose tough measures to prevent any more such ‘brilliant’ ideas on Fernando’s part.

  Even if he is the little one of the house, he can’t get away with everything. He has to be subject to the same rules as the other two. Having said that, his brother and sister still allow Fernando to get up to all sorts of mischief. Israel, his older brother, is the model, the example to follow, while Mari Paz is the older sister who indulges him in everything and who makes a fuss of him whenever she can. The friends of the family say that Fernando has his father’s character, the character of the shy, almost introvert, gallegos (people from Galicia) but who are at the same time, good, responsible people and good workers. Pepe doesn’t share this view and today describes his son as ‘an intelligent person, with a head for taking in information and different situations, capable of withstanding difficult moments and enjoying the good ones. Apart from his physical and technical qualities, he’s very strong mentally, has an absolute belief in what he can achieve, has always wanted to get on and improve and this has allowed him to get where he is.’

  The youngster also shows these qualities at school. He gets on well, has good marks, behaves well, is very determined and has a great capacity for concentration. ‘I remember a play we put on at the school. His part was to recite a poem about solidarity,’ remembers Alicia, the language teacher at the Colegio Público Francisco de Quevedo school. ‘He learned it by heart and recited it perfectly.’ All in all, a clever student, but not one who’s averse to a bit of cheating. Once, the teacher catches him red-handed while he’s copying but doesn’t punish him and doesn’t pull him out of the exam. The other students are angry and protest. ‘If you don’t take him out, then we’ll all start cheating,’ they say. But it’s difficult to punish that angel face, which looks as if it would never hurt a fly. His classmates remember …

  The end of term and the beginning of summer. The Torres Sanz family spend the holidays in the father’s home village. There are long weeks with his grandparents, uncles and aunts, his brother and sister, his friends in the village, months of adventure amongst the fields and vegetable gardens. Until his parents discover the seaside town of Cee in Galicia. It was by chance that they passed by there, they liked the place, found a small apartment on the beach and bought it. Fernando is then eight years old and for the following summers this will be his holiday destination. He makes new friends and acquaintances – and one of those will have a fundamental impact on his life. Because on this very beach, the thin, blond, shy lad falls in with a group of youngsters his own age, and meets Olalla Domínguez Liste, who is from the San Lázaro district of Santiago de Compostela and keen on figure skating. She is fifteen and he is seventeen. They meet, get to know each other, and fall in love. From then on, they are never apart. But this story is still to come. For the moment, Fernando is a lad who grows up, as his father says, in a ‘normal family’ surrounded by the love of his parents and paternal grandparents as well as those of his mother, Eulalio and Paz, who live not far away from Madrid in Valdeavero. A boy who grows up learning what it means to make sacrifices, to work hard, ‘to appreciate the important things and to understand,’ as José Torres always says, ‘what are the true values of life.’

  And to enjoy his football …

  Chapter 6

  Leader of the gang

  Five or six o’clock on a Saturday afternoon – a good time for a kick-around with the usual gang. Fernán, as his friends call him, puts himself in the goal that has been created between a wall and a mound of clothes. The game is non-stop, the boys create a huge dust cloud as they tear around after each other. The rules – even for those who want to use them – are virtually ignored. Then a pas
s is threaded through to Alexis, who finds the ball at his feet. Without hesitating, he shoots hard, very hard. The ball catches Torres full in the face and his mouth fills with blood. He bursts into tears and the game is over. His friends gather round and take him, running, back home to his mother, Flori. It’s a big shock for them all. He’s missing two front teeth.

  This is the point where Fernando Torres’ goalkeeping career ends. His brother, Israel, and his mother ban him from playing between the posts on the cement pitch. He himself also understands that maybe it’s better to try putting the ball into the net rather than trying to keep it out. And so begins the career of Fernando Torres as striker.

  ‘Fernán loved being in goal because of his brother, Israel, who was one of the best indoor football goalkeepers I’ve ever seen. He wanted to be like him but after he got smashed in the face, he never went back in goal. I was responsible for what happened and I felt bad. I was scared of getting a huge telling-off from my parents and from his. But, to be honest, it upset me a lot to see him like that and I remember going several times with him to the dentist. However, in one sense, the incident turned out well for him,’ says 26-year-old Alexis Gómez, now a security guard and the person responsible for changing the role of one of the world’s most famous strikers.

  Fernando Torres is six years old. One of the series on TV is Campeones: Oliver y Benji (Champions: Oliver and Benji), the Spanish language version of a hugely popular Japanese comic-style cartoon series about the adventures of a Japanese youth football team. It features super striker Tsubasa Ozora (known in Spanish by the English-style name of Oliver Atton) and the invincible goalkeeper Genzo Wakabayashi (Benji Price in the Spanish version). It tells the story of these two friends from their childhood to becoming professional footballers and, eventually, to being called up to the Japanese national side. Their adventures take in their team-mates, the training, the matches and the tournaments, as well as spectacular moves and action that would be impossible to perform in real life. These are the words of the (Spanish) theme tune:

  They go with the ball at their feet

  and nobody can stop them.

  The stadium vibrates with emotion

  to see both of them play.

  They only play to win

  but always in a sporting way

  and there’s nobody better

  for the fans.

  Oliver, Benji

  magicians on the ball.

  Benji, Oliver,

  dreams of being champions.

  Benji, Oliver,

  mad about football,

  they have to score another goal.

  Words and music that a lot of Spanish children have not forgotten. Torres was also a big fan of Oliver and Benji. He identified with the stories of the two youngsters and imagined himself being a footballer like them, a goalkeeper who let nothing past and a striker who, in the gardens around his home, was getting good at scoring against his brother Israel.

  Torres first began to kick his brother’s football around at just two years old. His brother was the model to follow. During the summer, the Torres Sanz family spent their holidays at Gastar (a small village about 12 miles from Santiago de Compostela), with the paternal grandparents. It’s where they got used to playing football. He played in the vegetable patch together with a group of cousins and local friends. Uncle Bruno was the most enthusiastic footballing family member and he worked hard to teach them the basics of the game.

  And still in Galicia, several years later, during summer holidays on the beach at Estorde, he would spend his days playing never-ending matches. ‘Mini-World Cups’ with everyone against each other. He gets stronger. ‘He was fast, agile, versatile, with very sharp changes of pace. You didn’t see great displays of quality but strength and power, yes. When he played, he had a special touch and in the sand he ran like a madman,’ remembers Ramón Marcote.

  At five years old, he enters his first team, Parque (Park) 84. Parque is the name of the neighbourhood and 84 the year of birth for the boys playing in the team. The shirt is red and the event is the footballing marathon that takes place at the Polideportivo (sports centre) in Fuenlabrada. It is a local trophy but a real occasion for any child. Amongst the spectators are parents, friends, colleagues and schoolmates. No one is bothered that the matches take the form of piles of kids – around fifteen to twenty – all kicking the ball in whatever way they could. They have a good time and they get to feel like real soccer stars and no one minds that the team has been put together just for the event. Two days later and they all go back to playing how they’d always played.

  That is, until the people from Cafetería Mario in Holanda Street decide to organise a team that will be called Mario’s Holanda.

  ‘An adult team was already in existence when we decided to create one for the youngsters. At that time in Fuenlabrada, there were a lot of young parents with lads who were really into sport. These families were a bit concerned about street crime, drug-taking and their kids getting into bad company, so we tried to get them together and keep them busy with football,’ recalls Juan Gómez, now aged 55, one of the founders of that team and the coach for Torres and his mates. Today he works in the Real Casa de la Moneda (the Royal Mint).

  One Friday afternoon, in the Fuenlabrada sports shop called Camacho, just 100 metres from where Fernando used to live, the ex-trainer has time to sit down with his son, Alexis, the captain of Mario’s Holanda, and winger Javier Camacho, amongst the rackets, trainers, balls, bathing costumes and shirts of Real Madrid, Atlético, the Spanish national team and Liverpool. He remembers the time when the Reds’ Number 9 used to run around on hard cement surfaces.

  ‘They were a pretty good group of kids,’ says Juan. ‘We saw Fernando play and we thought this lad ought to be in our team. Why? Because at eight years old he had the same skills that he has now – speed and technique. Training didn’t bother him but, more importantly, he never got tired of learning. I had to teach him everything from the throw-in to what it means to play in a team. We had to tell him that football is a game and that was how he should approach it. But right from that moment, I was convinced that Fernando would go far. I always said that to his father, a delightful person – like his brother and the rest of the family. They didn’t believe me. Once, after a game in which he scored eight goals, I said it again and José was almost in tears. But I was absolutely sure.’

  As you look at the photo of the Mario’s Holanda team for the 1992–93 season, Javier Camacho, the son of the shop owner, is standing to the right of Fernando. He has a serious expression with his mouth half-open in the team’s green, white and black shirt, and is looking directly at the camera. Sixteen years later, apart from a slight beard, Javier hasn’t changed much. Nor has Fernando. El Niño’s birthday is in March and his in July. Javier is studying in Madrid to be a surveyor but still loves playing football for the fun of it, for the team of La Moraleja De Enmedio, a village about 18 miles from Madrid, in the Segunda Regional (Second Regional) division (the leagues below the Spanish third division). And like Torres, he is a striker. He remembers well that photo, taken all those years ago at the Colegio Publico Andrés Manjón school. Without hesitation, from left to right, he reels off the names of his then team-mates:

  ‘Juan the coach, Rubén the goalkeeper, Alexis, Fernando and I, then the really tall one in the green tracksuit, Israel – the brother of Fernando who always came to watch us and sometimes, when Juan Gómez wasn’t there, would act as coach, along with Ivan, the brother of Alexis. Squatting down in front are Alejandro, Dani, Rici, Rocha and Alvarito.’

  He describes Fernando at eight years old: ‘Physically very thin, very blond, with loads of freckles. He looked English. As a person he was the typical leader, the leader of the gang, very mischievous and very shy.’ How is it possible to be shy and a leader? ‘Amongst us, he was the extrovert, he ruled the roost, he spoke for everyone else. In the park, when we all ran off because some neighbour got angry and shouted at us, he stayed behind to argu
e and defend our right to play there. But with people he didn’t know, he put his head down and said nothing. Apart from with the girls, of course. He really had an eye for them. You’d always see him with one from school or from the local area. To be blond and have the air of a leader, the girls really liked that.’ And being mischievous? ‘For Fernán, like all of us in the gang – we were some twenty-odd kids with three or four years age difference between us – we liked to play jokes such as ringing the door entry phone bells on houses in the neighbourhood and then running away. Typical pranks like that.’

  And football-wise?

  ‘He was the same as he is now – a star. He was playing Number 9 and he had the ability to go past the opposition and score loads of goals in every game. When things weren’t going well and we couldn’t score, we’d give him the ball to sort things out. I remember once, against Colegio Valle Inclán (school), we won 24-0 with him scoring eleven on his own. Juan wanted to substitute him to give some of the others a chance but he wouldn’t have any of it. He wanted to keep going and pile on the goals. That’s what he liked doing.’

  Juan takes up the story:

  ‘It’s true to say that if he was taken off then he would be really angry. ‘I’m taking you off for being a bully,’ I told him, ‘you’ve got eleven goals. That’s enough.’ Treating it as a joke like that, it worked. I remember him once leaving the field crying uncontrollable tears of happiness. And what was the problem? He’d wanted to come off because he hadn’t been able to get a goal and the score was 0-0. He’d tried everything but it just wasn’t possible. He was beside himself. It was the only time he asked me to substitute him. I told him to stay on and in the end he scored. In the 1992– 93 season, Fernando got no less than 80 goals and during the three years he was with Mario’s Holanda, we won all our league games. We were champions in everything. And everywhere we were followed by loads of people – fathers, mothers, brothers, friends. We were one big family.’