• Why return to Atlético can revitalise the Kid
• Match report: Málaga 2-2 Atlético Madrid
The first time Fernando Torres went to the Vicente Calderón to watch Atlético Madrid was just over 20 years ago, one cold day in January 1995. His grandfather Eulalio had already made an Atlético fan of him and that afternoon over lunch someone suggested heading to the match. Torres remembers Diego Simeone but otherwise his ‘debut’, a 1-1 draw with Compostela, was not particularly memorable and was far from glorious. Which was appropriate, somehow.
Eighteen months later Atlético won the double but those were their only trophies in what would be an 18-year run. Eulalio had long filled Torres’s head with talk of suffering and sacrifice, about how being an Atlético meant “resisting Real Madrid”, and at school in Fuenlabrada he’d found out for himself. “When I was young almost everyone was a Real fan. I’d go in wearing my Atlético tracksuit just to wind them up,” he later recalled. “But on the inside I was almost always pissed off because the team had lost that weekend.”
Continue reading...