by MLPD » Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:13 pm
Torres was indeed under serious pressure in Atlético. He was give all the responsibility at the age of 17 and he never refused to do what he was expected. For years he has been the only (or almost only) quality player in the squad, the captain, the one attending press conferences, shooting penalties, reading nasty comments in the press and unfair comparisons with other (specially Real Madrid) players, signing the kids shirts and taking the blame when things did not work.
Atletico board, as correctly pointed out by Sabre (as usual) is possibly the less efficient, more corrupt and less team-caring bunch of people in the the history of football. For years they have used Torres to sell shirts and score goals that would help the team stay in the first division. Torres, a committed Atlético fan since the age of 3, always fought for the Club.
They finally sold him. The guy could not take it any longer and no rational Atletico fan could ever blame him. They also sold the stadium. The goal of both operations was to make the board a bit richer, but they could not afford another grey season after both sales. They decided to buy a bunch of good players for a change.
The fact that Atlético is doing better this year cannot be explained on the grounds that Torres left, but, on the contrary, on the grounds that good players arrived. I would have liked to see Torres playing with the rest of the squad we have this year ... so far we have only seen him playing with horribly poor players in the midfield. Now it is different for him. They guy got to liverpool, he started playing with Gerrard and now seems that they have been playing together for years ... Supernatural connections? nah, just a matter of quality ... Torres never had a Gerrard in Atlético. As simple as that.