By NAIMUL ALAM
When people hear the word Fernando Torres they picture so many things in their minds. Some picture a world class superstar while others picture a massive flop acquired by an ambitious football club owner at a very extravagant price.
If one was to follow his time line since he joined Chelsea football club one can easily point out that he has had a roller coaster 1 and 1/2 seasons at Chelsea.
What Torres, may have achieved at Liverpool can be called Personal achievements where he has scored a significant number of goals that has made him one of the most feared strikers of this generation.He scored 81 goals in 141 appearances.Sadly, he didn't rip anything from all the goals he scored as Liverpool were trophy less during his stay.
After he joined Chelsea, the first team he encountered was his former employers Liverpool f.c where he made a poor start to his Chelsea campaign and he wasn't well received by the Liverpool fans. Chelsea eventually lost to Liverpool 1-0 courtesy of a goal from Raul Meireles who ironically joined Chelsea in more or less the same manner.
As the season progressed things couldn't have gotten any worse for him as he scored only one goal for Chelsea in 18 competitive matches. However, critics never took into consideration that in majority of the matches, he did not start as he was overshadowed by the Chelsea living legend Didier Drogba which forced Torres to make starts from the bench and make cameo appearances. Which marked his miserable 1/2 season at Chelsea
A FRUSTRATED FERNANDO TORRES
The new season kicks off marking the start of a whole new campaign and pressure is high on Fernando Torres to justify his price tag. Chelsea fans getting impatient while the opposition fans are mocking him.Time for him to step up and he did just that. The season started and he kicked off with a string of impressive displays for the first few matches and he managed to score a couple of goals as the season progressed he was much more involved in the team play and created assists for his team mates but failed to do the main job for which he was bought i.e to score goals.Torres started the match against Manchester United at Old Trafford and Chelsea were down 3-0 where he scored a beautiful goal past DeGea only to follow it up with a horrendous miss which highlighted the evening,Chelsea lost the match 3-1. The manger once again gave Torres a chance to start the next game where he scored 2 goals early in the first half only to be sent before half time which earned him a 4 match suspension.This sparked the lowest point in his football career where he spent 24 hours without scoring a goal.This summed up his first half of the 2011-12 campaign though he scored a couple of goals in the UEFA Champions League for Chelsea.
TORRES BROUGHT TO HIS KNEES
PATH TO REJUVENATION
Fast forward to second half of the season, Chelsea is in crisis as they are rapidly dropping points and pressure is building on Andre Villas Boas. Players frustrated and eventually the coach gets fired and Roberto Di Matteo takes over and once again Torres is overshadowed by Drogba and hence Torres makes most of his appearances from the bench. However, this doesn't stop him as he gets more and more comfortable with his team mates and shows his brilliance and makes an assist in almost every match he makes an appearance.He helps Chelsea and enables them to make it to the FA cup finals with his remarkable assists rather than his goals.As Torres gets more impressive, he is shockingly not given the starting role despite a dramatic improvement in his form.He was omitted from the FA Cup final starting lineup despite playing a significant role along with Juan Mata in leading Chelsea to the finals which Chelsea eventually won. This marked his 1st trophy in England since his arrival.
FERNANDO TORRES HOLDS HIS 1ST TROPHY IN ENGLAND
With Chelsea now effectively out of the Barclay's Premier League where Torres also improved significantly by racking assists and capping it off with a marvelous hatrick against QPR, they only had a chance to win the FA cup which they did and the UEFA champions league where Torres did play a very significant role in Chelsea's triumph. He scored some goals in the group stages and provided the vital assists and not to forget his priceless goal against Barcelona that cemented Chelsea's qualification in the finals and maintained the team's and his great record against Barcelona a side he tortured since his Athletico Madrid days as for Chelsea, they became the only team that Pep Guardiola has failed to beat in 4 encounters they had in his remarkable regime.
SIMPLY
PRICELESS
Big day for Chelsea
football Club, they are in the UEFA champions league finals and now it is there
time to be among the greatest teams in history and Chelsea are to verse Bayern
Munich in the Allianz Arena. Bayern dominate Chelsea as they had the luxury of
playing at home in a final with a full strength attack while Chelsea had some
of their key first team players suspended and also had two unfit central
defenders who just recovered from major injuries. In some occasions
Chelsea rode their luck until Bayern deservedly take the lead in the 83rd minute
through a header by Thomas Muller. Torres is then introduced and Salomon Kalou
is replaced and Torres wastes no time and starts wrecking havoc in the Bayern
defense and he eventually creates a corner and then Mata steps up to take
the corner and Drogba equalizes.It's noteworthy that the equalizer wouldn't have come if the corner wasn't created which Torres did. Chelsea eventually goes on to win the UEFA Champions league for the first time in their history and Torres's name is now part of the historic team that does so.
TORRES LIFTS THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
He eventually ended the season with the highest note and achieved the most successful season in his career where he has scored 11 goals and 18 assists for Chelsea in all competitions not to forget the fact that most of his starts were from the bench.He also won Euro 2012 and won the Golden boot with 3 goals and 1 assist despite making most of his appearances from the bench and playing for the least minutes. This leaves one wondering what the stats would have said if he had started all his games for Chelsea and Spain.He has played and scored in the Community Shield where Chelsea lost to Manchester City 3-2, the official curtain raiser of the (2012-13) EPL season hence extending his road to recovery to this season.Only time will tell if he will combine his devastating form he had in Liverpool and spice it up with the winning mentality of Chelsea and Spain to make himself and his club Chelsea and country Spain a great threat threat to the opponents. As per now, things look to be heading in the right direction for the one and only FERNANDO TORRES.
DOUBLE DELIGHT
A REMARKABLE TURN AROUND
