Long-term view: The night Fernando was king

Sarah Winterburn
Fernando Torres celebrates

There’s a story I always wanted to tell, but could never find anyone who would indulge my witterings.

If you don’t like it, if it is just not your cup of tea, then for what it’s worth, I remain forever on the side of taking no offence to that whatsoever; people have different tastes and this very modern belief that those different tastes represent a grave moral failing is frankly beneath our dignity.

If you hate it, if you really truly hate it – then buddy, I’d suggest you get that checked out by someone a little more sensitive to you than the anonymous glare of a computer screen.

If you like it, if it speaks to you of a hazy world evoked by the immediate reality of football, a world I often think of, then hey – I can promise it won’t change your life, but nice to have you on board.

It’s a story about a boy called Fernando, who grew up poor, comparatively. There are ways and ways to grow up in Madrid; a force dominated the city, that had won the affection of kings and dictators, and everyone abroad who cared nought for anything but winning; a plutocratic, entitled force, that invented names for the trophies it expected to own and published imaginary team-sheets featuring the players it deemed worthy of wearing its colours. Most people grew up supporting them. Most people prefer the easy option. Fernando grew up different, beneath a ragged banner of red and white, a useless alternative to the easy white.

But Fernando didn’t just support them; Fernando could fight. Much was expected of him. So much shouldn’t be expected of a teenager, but they were desperate for some dignity against the white, moneyed, mercenary horde who laid waste to them as barely an afterthought to their real battles, fought elsewhere – and Fernando could shoot, really shoot, so they picked him to lead whatever charge they could muster.

Defeat followed defeat. Tank shells bought from the most expensive catalogues were blitzed across the city, stones were thrown in return. The young Fernando grew up as the prince and figurehead of those in Madrid who helplessly made bad choices, who picked an underdog who twice a year would be beaten down again by a gang of aristocrats and mercenaries whose sole interest was the sport of humiliation. They had a rivalry, and this wasn’t it – this was merely an embarrassment of those in the city who were poor and helpless.

Fernando, if they thought of him at all, would be beaten down by the embarrassment, from determinedly trying to make a home and live in dignity in the buildings they occasionally destroyed. Eventually, having bled for the underdog too many times, he had to leave. He knew it was desertion, it would for a long time weigh heavily as that; but men have lives they seek to lead, a belief that things could be better, even if that means walking out on something precious.

Fast-forward, then, to a brisk and breezy night in March 2009. Happily clad, once again, in a shirt made of nothing but red and white, worn by those united more now by suffering than by glory, who sang hymns for their fallen comrades before each new battle, he’d already rode back with them to Madrid. It went okay. The defeat of the white force by the red was improbable, glorious for those back in Liverpool, but it didn’t do much to lift the stone that hung around Fernando’s neck. He’d never been an assassin of the white force, his record against them was barely noticeable, and as he walked early from the encounter with injured ankles the thing he truly wanted – to be engaged in a slaughter of them, milk-fed pigs shot in a run, not simply an honourable skirmish – felt like the kind of dream that kills you in agony.

Then they came to Anfield. And Pepe, one of the foulest of the white force, was thrown roughly and disdainfully to the ground by Fernando as he banged in the second of four – the kind of score that made the whole idea of Madrid seem momentarily ridiculous.

And because he was always a classy soldier, a better breed of person than so many of the white horde, he didn’t even seek to humiliate their fans who had flown across land and sea to witness this, and were now parked immediately by the goal; he merely skipped a few paces along the line, with his back to them, raising the lettering for them to see, should they ever have forgotten the name, wondered what became of Fernando, before leaving to celebrate with his new allies.

And it was one of my most favourite things I ever witnessed on a football pitch, where I could truly feel what it meant to the person in question, and made me want to tell you this silly little story. Go back and watch that game’s highlights on YouTube. It was the best and purest night Anfield has witnessed in decades. Ideally, you will find one without some genius deciding Albanian hardcore trance music makes a better backdrop than the original commentary…

Toby Sprigings – follow him on Twitter