Ballon d'Or: Fernando Torres Profile

Can 'El Nino' fare even better in 2009?

Nov 23, 2009 3:11:00 AM

Teams

Players

Fernando Torres

Join Goal.com for a look at yet another Ballon d'Or nominee, or click here for a full list of candidates, given here ordered by surname or 'football name'.

FERNANDO TORRES
Club: Liverpool
Country: England
Age: 25 (DOB March 20 1984)
Position: Attacker
Previous Placings: 3rd, 2008

Eyebrows were raised when Liverpool splashed out in excess of £20 million on Fernando Torres in the summer of 2007, but any doubts about the former Atletico Madrid ace have quickly been extinguished as he has blasted his way into the pantheon of Anfield greats in record time.

Injuries have hampered him over the past twelve months, but still the Spaniard boasts a frightening goal record. His 60 goals for Liverpool have come in just 96 games, and he is arguably the world’s top striker at the moment, having scored the goal which clinched Spain’s European Championship success in 2008.

A lack of game-time is the only thing which will stop ‘El Nino’ from winning this award.

Attributes

14 goals in just 20 league starts last season for Liverpool.
10 goals in 12 appearances this season, despite injuries. 21 in calendar year 2009.
Fastest ever hat-trick for Spain – scored in 17 minutes v New Zealand in June 2009.
Third in FIFA World Player of the Year last season
Equalled 46-year-old Liverpool record of scoring in eight successive home games.

They Say...

“The biggest ambition in my career is still to win the European Cup. I want to have a picture of that to look at later. You can have a contract that is better than your friends, but no player looks back and says ‘I won more money’.” – Torres speaking to the Mail’s Martin Samuel in January of this year.

Prediction

The fact that a series of niggling injuries have restricted his playing time in the last twelve months may count against him, but Torres should be a certainty for the top ten, and few who have witnessed the Spaniard for Liverpool recently would doubt that he has what it takes to add this award to his mantelpiece.