Liverpool.
Anfield era.

It was the best Torres season in his career by individual numbers. 33 Premier League matches, 24 goals. 29 goals across all competitions. Most prolific first-season foreign player in Premier League history at that time (Aguero broke the record in 2011). Torres scored with the right, with the left, headers, from inside the box, from distance. His famous Premier League goal against Everton (chest control at full pace, cross-step onto the shot, strike from 25 metres into the right corner) made the cover of FourFourTwo.

Liverpool finished the season fourth but reached the Champions League semifinal, where they lost to Chelsea in extra time. Torres scored two goals in the tournament, both in the group stage. His partnership with Steven Gerrard became the main English football story of the season. Gerrard played a false ten role looking for passes to Torres running on the shoulder. Their link became known in the English press as Jerrard-to-Torres, one of the most dangerous attacking combinations in Premier League history.

In summer 2008 Torres won the Euro with Spain and scored in the final against Germany. The return to Liverpool was triumphant. The Anfield stand chanted Spa-nish Cham-pi-on before the first match of the season against Sunderland. In the 2008/2009 season Torres scored 14 Premier League goals in 24 appearances, so his pace per match was even higher than the previous year. But injuries kept him from more. He missed eight weeks with a hamstring problem.

In November 2008 Torres finished second in the Ballon d'Or vote, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo. He received the Silver Ball, the best Spanish result since Raul in 2001. At the Monaco ceremony Torres sat between Iniesta and Pique, who were in the top three. He later told France Football: I came to the ceremony not thinking about the award. I came as a Liverpool representative, the club that gave me the opportunity to play at this level.

Liverpool finished the season second in the Premier League, just four points behind Manchester United. It was the best finish in two decades. Torres and Gerrard were the backbone of attack, in the season combining for 44 goals in all competitions. The match everyone remembers: Manchester United 1-4 Liverpool at Old Trafford in March 2009. Torres scored two, Gerrard one, Fabio Aurelio one. It was the most humiliating United home defeat in a decade.

The 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 seasons became harder. In April 2010 Torres suffered a meniscus injury in the Europa League match against Benfica, needing surgery, missing the end of the season. He returned only for the World Cup 2010 and never caught form. In the 2010/2011 season Liverpool changed coaches (Benitez left in summer 2010, Roy Hodgson came, then Kenny Dalglish from January 2011). The partnership with Gerrard broke, team shape changed.

On January 31, 2011, the last day of the transfer window, Chelsea made an official offer of 50 million pounds. At the time a British record. Liverpool did not want to let him go but Torres asked out of the club. He later explained in his 2015 autobiography El Nino: I was not honest with the club or with myself. I wanted a change of scene but I phrased it wrong. I spoke of sporting ambition. In reality I just had exhaustion, physical and psychological. The transfer went through. Torres said goodbye to Anfield in a short Sky Sports interview, half an hour before flying to London.

Liverpool fans did not forgive. In the next Torres match for Chelsea at Anfield (February 6, 2011) the stand booed him for 70 minutes and hung a banner reading 50 million for one Jose Reina (meaning the real Liverpool value was not Torres but the goalkeeper). It was the first Anfield game without any support for Torres. He would appear at the stadium another four times with Chelsea, and every time he was booed through the full ninety.

81 goals in 142 matches in all competitions. 65 goals in 102 Premier League matches, a ratio of 0.64 per match, one of the best in club history. The fastest 50 goals by a British forward (72 matches), a record that still stands. Silver Ball 2008 as the second footballer of Europe. Partnership with Gerrard which will enter football tactics textbooks. Shirt number 9 at Anfield that had to be withheld for six months after his departure because fans fought to keep it from new forwards.

In 2017, six years after departing, Liverpool fans in a This Is Anfield poll named Torres the fifth favorite forward in club history behind Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen. In 2024 he returned to Anfield in a veterans match, met with a 15-minute ovation, the song This boy from Fuenla, and a smile from Steven Gerrard who hugged him at the center circle before the Liverpool v Milan veterans match.