Atletico
Madrid (I)

Torres debuted for the first team on May 27, 2001 against Leganes in Segunda. It was an unprecedented situation: Atletico, one of the three Spanish grandes since the 1930s, was playing in the second division for the first time. The relegation from 1999/2000, financial trouble, departures of key players, all converged. Four matches in, Torres scored his first Atletico goal against Albacete. Off a right-wing cross he jumped above the defender and headed into the right corner. The photo of this goal hangs in the Atletico museum.

In the 2001/2002 season Atletico won Segunda and returned to La Liga. Torres scored six goals in the tournament, the most for anyone in the squad under 20. Villaverde said at the end-of-season press conference: This kid does not just play, he already carries the club on his shoulders. In the next season, 2002/2003, Atletico was back in La Liga. Torres was a regular starter, played 32 matches, scored 13. The club finished mid-table but did not qualify for Europe.

Starting from the 2003/2004 season Torres wears the captain armband. He is 19 and 188 days old, a club record. He wears it for six seasons running, never handing it over. The only time it hung on Antonio Lopez's shoulder was a match Torres was suspended for. Villaverde said in Marca in 2004: If there is one person in this club I would hand the keys to Vicente Calderon, it is Fernando. He thinks about the team more than he admits.

From the outside it seemed Torres had to leave. He was the best young forward in Spain, playing for the national team since 19, and Atletico had not reached the Champions League in any of his seven seasons. Arsene Wenger made an offer of 32 million pounds in 2005, Torres refused. Milan through Paolo Maldini offered a personal contract in 2006, Torres refused. Chelsea, with whom a preliminary agreement had been reached in June 2006, was stopped by Torres himself when he called then-manager Mourinho and asked him to withdraw the offer.

The reason was one: Torres grew up on Atletico. His grandfather had spent forty years going to home matches at Vicente Calderon, his father spent forty years doing the same after. The family lived in Fuenlabrada, Torres took his grandmother children to the sea every summer. Leaving for London or Milan meant physically breaking away from what had made him. In Marca in 2006 he said: Atletico is not a club. It is the place where I grew up. As long as I have hope that we will win together, I stay.

But by June 2007 it was clear there was no hope. Atletico finished seventh in La Liga, did not qualify for UEFA Cup, and was selling key players. Torres was 23. One more season and he would have lost the window for a maximum transfer. The family gathered and decided: it is time. There were two options, Manchester United (Ferguson wanted him) and Liverpool (Benitez had sent a detailed presentation of his role in the team). Torres chose Liverpool. A few days before the official offer he flew to Anfield, walked through the empty stadium, after which he called his agent to say: I feel this is the club.

Torres played his last match of the first Atletico spell on June 17, 2007 against Valencia at Vicente Calderon. He scored on the 71st minute, then did not play further. Coach Javier Aguirre replaced him on the 73rd so the entire stadium could rise in ovation. Torres walked round the entire pitch, raising his hand with the captain armband. The stands sang Fernando, no te vayas (Fernando, do not go). He did not cry, but at the press conference he could not speak for two minutes.

Not only the team saw him off but the club. President Enrique Cerezo handed him a commemorative medal with the number 9 and the inscription Capitan por siempre (Captain forever). Vicente del Bosque, at that time Real Madrid coach but a long family friend of the Torres family, came to Vicente Calderon to say: Fernando is leaving to return. I am certain he will lift a main trophy with Atletico one day. Eight years later, in January 2015, Torres did return to the same stadium, in the same nine, to the same stand.

In seven seasons of the first spell Torres scored 91 goals for Atletico in all competitions. 75 of them in La Liga, 11 in Segunda, the rest in national cups. He was top scorer of the club in 2003/2004, 2004/2005, 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 (four seasons in a row). Three times running he was named in the La Liga team of the season. His transfer for 20 million pounds (at the time a club record for a Spanish player) partly cleared the Atletico debt.

He left but remained in the club bigger than just a name. His photo hangs in the Vicente Calderon corridor (now Metropolitano). His number nine was not given to any other player from 2007 to 2015. When he returned in 2015, he received exactly that nine. For Atletico fans the first Torres spell is not seven years without trophies. It is seven years of loyalty which they will remember as the main example of what it means to be a Rojiblanco.