Fernando Torres, the former Spain striker who played for Atlético Madrid, Liverpool and Chelsea, announced on Friday that he is about to retire.
"I have something very important to announce," he said in a tweet. "After 18 exciting years, the time has come to put an end to my football career. Next Sunday, the 23rd at 10:00AM, local time in Japan, I will have a press conference in Tokyo to explain all the details. See you there."
During his career, Torres, 35, won two European Championships, one Champions League trophy, two Europa League titles, one FIFA World Cup title and an English FA Cup trophy,
Such a fine record seems to be telling the story of a very successful soccer player, but if you take a look at Torres' performance on the field, especially after he joined Chelsea in 2011, it's actually a much different and sad story.
Fernando Torres celebrates the 2008 UEFA European Championship title (L1) with Spain, the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League title with Chelsea (L2), the 2012 UEFA European Championship title (R2) with Spain and the 2010 FIFA World Cup title (R1) with Spain. /VCG Photo
Having started his career at Atlético Madrid in 2000, Torres soon became a fan favorite and scored 91 goals in seven years at the club. In 2007, Liverpool paid 38 million pounds (about 48 million U.S. dollars) to bring him to Anfield, where Torres again conquered local fans with his perfect combination of speed, skills, sharp capture of goalscoring chances that landed him 81 goals in 142 games. In 2011, Chelsea bought him for 58.5 million pounds (about 74.2 million U.S. dollars) but that was the turning point of his career.
Injuries have kept haunting Torres since then. Though he was still able to put on remarkable performance from time to time – like scoring the game-winning goal to help Chelsea knock out Barcelona in the 2011-12 Champions League semifinal – he was never able to regain his career peak. In the following years, he went to AC Milan, returned to Atlético and finally ended up joining Sagan Tosu of the J1 League.
Torres' national team career was better than his club record. He was the starting striker of Spain from 2008 to 2012 during which the country won two European Championships (2008, 2012) and one World Cup (2010). Considering that Torres scored the only goal in the 2008 European Championship final against Germany and had one goal and one assist in Spain's 4-0 victory over Italy in the 2012 European Championship final, he started and witnessed the whole dominating era of Spain in the soccer world.