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This is getting serious. Well, sometimes. Ferran Torres sits at the home ground of tiny SV Aasen 1928 and laughs at how Lamine Yamal must be illegal playing darts with Phil Foden and is David Villa when asked about the man who will stand in front of him and his Spain teammates. “If the last one had to go in off the beam, the next one would need three curls to beat ‘Mom,'” he says. “You have to visualize it, believe it. You also need a clear chance; we watched him last night and he’s amazing.”
Mom is Giorgi Mamardashvili, the 6-foot-6 Georgia goalkeeper who has made more saves than anyone else. Torres’ goal, which went past Albanian Tomas Strakosha, completed a perfect group phase for selection, nine points from nine and no goals conceded, although it was also the only one they scored themselves since half-time in their opening game, and the differences are becoming more subtle. “We were the best team in the group stage and that gives us confidence,” he says. “But things are changing now. Have we crossed Italy? In the semi-final last time we gave them the upper hand and still went home, still a thorn in our side. You can play good or bad, but now you have to win.”
Spain game a lot good. Better than anyone and better than anyone expected. At least everyone outside the Öschberghof: the team that walked every morning from their isolated forest hotel to Donaueschingen for training had more faith than anyone else. “Without a doubt,” Torres says, pausing. “Without a doubt,” he says again, and there is another pause. Then a smile. “Without a doubt,” he adds. It could be his motto. “The first step to doing something is believing in it. If you don’t believe, there’s no point in trying. But we have faith. There’s always less faith out there, but as the games go on they start to climb on board. We have to ignore the outside noise.
Which doesn’t sound like someone who ignores outside noise; instead, it may even suggest a person affected by it resisting it. Can doubt, criticism really be useful, something to fight against? Any external enemy to prove him wrong? It has a big breath. “It depends… it depends…” Torres begins.
There’s been a lot of talk about him being called The Shark – too much, in fact – but he also suggested that it said something about his personality and talked about working with a psychologist, learning to live with the tension, to channel it. Xavi Hernandez described him as the strongest player he had ever met. At times he seemed driven by rehabilitation, a determination to strike back, an edge about him. Yet today the feeling is quite different; he does. There is a lightness to him here, the analysis is done calmly, perhaps a reflection of his development and environment.
“Sometimes it’s not nice when the press in your own country doesn’t believe in you,” he says. “It’s not exactly fuel; it’s…” He trails off. “I won’t use the word. You should support your country. Not that they weren’t; just maybe they didn’t believe like we do. After all, few people have the faith that we have. I wouldn’t call it fuel because we know what it’s like; we’re used to them not believing in you one day, believing in you the next.”
Today they do, more and more are getting on board. The difficulty for Torres is that Spain’s change, their success is due at least in part to wings Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, who saw his options limited. At Barcelona he was also not always a starter, doubts that he will be in Germany are growing. However, Luis de la Fuente trusts a player with versatility and the capacity to score when no one else is, which he demonstrated again against Albania. One of 10 changes to the team, Torres’ strike was his 20th in 44 games; no one has such a good ratio, a hint to Villa regarding his movement and clean finishing. “My idol,” he says. “Hopefully I can catch him one day.” There are contributions, he believes, even off the bench.
“I also score with my club – my numbers are there – but there’s something about putting that shirt on, something inside. I have been in the national team at youth level and there is pride. It’s more than a team, our strength is the group. You should make the most of the minutes you get; make them count and you’ll get more. It is important for the striker to score, to say: “I’m here, I’m ready”. Sometimes the starting 11 wears the other team down and we can come in fresh and change the game.
“Maybe we are more direct than before; we don’t have that much possession. Maybe it’s a little looser. Every coach has his nuance. But more than style, what you see is that we are friends on the field. You see the energy, the connection, the atmosphere: everyone is fully engaged. You see how we train and it flows. Above all, empathy, synergy is felt. There is no rivalry; there is competition, but not rivalry. Of course we all want to play, but it’s healthy and it’s extremely important.”
What then does he do for Lamin Yamal? Ferran smiles. “That he should be banned. What is this 16 year old kid doing!”
In fact, strictly speaking, it is prohibited, or at least it is: persons under the age of 18 are prohibited from working after 11 p.m. Nobody is taking him seriously, but if the last 16 go to extra time, Bild claim that strictly speaking, he can’t play. Which, come to think of it, might be a possibility. Torres laughs. “No, I will report it to the police after July 14,” he jokes. “Let him help us win it first. I didn’t know that; Now I’m going to tell him, screw him: there’s a joke here. Off the pitch we spend the whole day, all together: no groups. I play darts. I learned in Manchester with Phil Foden and everything. I am not bad, but I am not as good as them: they have been playing for years; in the beer pub.
“I don’t usually watch a lot of football, but the European Championship I watch because they are opponents we can face. We watched Georgia vs Portugal. We beat Georgia 7-1 and 3-1 in the qualifiers, but those results are a bit fake and things are changing now. The group is complete. We can expect anything. And we’ll take it game by game. If we get to the 90th minute against Georgia and win, then OK. Now you just have to win by all means. God willing, on July 15, everyone everywhere is saying we played like shit and won.”
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