Chelsea striker Fernando Torres had such a
difficult time last season that he has struggled to
enjoy the success of winning both the Champions
League and the FA Cup in May.
Torres netted just 11 times in 49 appearances in
2011-12, spending the majority of the campaign
on the bench as Didier Drogba was preferred in
attack.
The Spaniard did net the decisive winner in the
Champions League semi-final against Barcelona,
but he had little impact off the bench as the Blues
defeated Bayern Munich on penalties in the final.
'The season was not for me, it was for others,'
'Chelsea wins the FA Cup but I don’t play the
semi-final nor the final. I didn’t taste anything.
'I feel I participated a bit more in the Champions
League but even so it was not the Champions
League I wanted to win, not like that. I want to win
another Champions League and in a different
way.'
Torres, who cost Chelsea £50million in January
2011, thanked Blues fans for sticking by him in a
season when he went six months without scoring.
'The fans helped me a lot - and you don’t
understand why,' he added.
'You come from outside and you have played well
in this league and, with the Spanish mentality, the
first who should have turned against you are the
fans. You are not living up to expectations but
they still support you. These people are special.
'At times I was thinking, "I will sit here on the
bench, I won’t make any noise, I don’t even want
to play." But they are demanding that you jump
on the pitch and play. They lifted my spirits so
many times. Not even my team-mates succeeded
in doing that in this way. Whatever I do from now
on will be for the fans.
'That is why I want to win another Champions
League. For them.'
Magic moment: Torres is mobbed after scoring
the winner against Barcelona
He told Spanish daily newspaper La Razon: 'I
lived things that had not happened to me before.
A new manager came in and he was hardly
counting on you and what you did in training
didn’t count either.
'You can’t do anything more but you’re not
playing. People encourage you whether you play
or not but I didn’t know what to do.
'I counted on the support of team-mates that are
on the bench, who don’t let themselves sink and
always give an example.
'Paulo Ferreira, the substitute keepers, the
youngsters whose progression has stopped. It
helped me to see the panorama sitting on the last
step.'
While Torres admitted that his price tag has been
a burden in his first 18 months at the club, he
feels as though he has 'arrived again' following a
goalscoring start to the season in the Community
Shield defeat to Manchester City and with a
starting place now virtually assured with Drogba
gone.
He added: 'You can think "Maybe Chelsea was not
the team". But if you are a great player, you have
to find your place, I’m not the first one to whom
this has happened.
Off to a flyer: Torres celebrates his strike
against Man City
'I think I didn’t know how to be a point of
reference there. And that is what I am trying to
achieve. I am obliged to succeed in making my
team-mates need me. When you arrive at a club
like this, what you had done up to that point
means nothing.
'It’s not a question of whether they welcomed me
or not it’s the fact you are just one more player.
It’s not a team or a club where they look at the
details - your gestures, how you train, how you
behave.
'No, you arrive there and you are one more of the
team. You only have to be a star on the pitch.
'They are veterans and they don’t have to give an
example. If I arrived now again for the first time, I
would do things differently.
'I would try to be one more of the team and adapt
to the situation. Now I know that from the first
day you have to think of yourself more and try to
demonstrate to your team-mates that you are one
more of them. I was paying attention more to
what was my place rather than worrying about
earning a place.'
Kings of Europe: Spain lift the European
Championship in Kiev
Torres, who became the first player ever to score
in consecutive European Championship finals as
Spain went on to retain their crown, also
expressed a frustration at being in and out of
manager Vicente Del Bosque's starting XI.
'My last objective was the national team but
during the months before the Euros I had been
left out of the squad once,' said Torres, who won
the golden boot in Poland and Ukraine.
'Suddenly I get minutes on the pitch and I take
advantage, there are rotations in the team
because of so many competitions, so I score and
I get in the squad for the Euros.
'I felt like a small child. And maybe it would have
been normal if I hadn’t gone with Spain.'
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