Former Liverpool striker Fernando Torres has revealed he felt “unstoppable” at Anfield and thought he would score in every home game for the Reds.
The Spaniard left his boyhood club Atletico Madrid and moved to Merseyside in 2007. After making his debut against Aston Villa, the 34-year-old made his Anfield debut against Chelsea a week later in August the same year.
Torres had his compatriots Pepe Reina and Rafael Benitez at Liverpool, with the latter in charge at the club. The striker still remembers the atmosphere on his home debut for Liverpool as he was unable to hear anything due to the loud noise in the stadium.
He took 16 minutes to score his first Premier League goal for the English club and felt “everything was perfect” for him to impress at Liverpool.
“I remember my first game at Anfield against Chelsea. [It was so loud] I couldn’t hear a thing – the atmosphere was spectacular,” Torres told beIN LaLiga (via AS).
“We greeted the Chelsea players and Pepe Reina came up to me and said, ‘Hey, this is what I was telling you about. You deserve this, let’s go out and enjoy it’. Then, in our next game at Anfield I turned to Pepe said, ‘You know, Pepe, I think I am going to score here in every game at this stadium…everything is perfect’. At Anfield, I felt unstoppable.”
Torres scored 81 goals in 142 appearances for Liverpool, before leaving the Reds for Chelsea in January 2011. He was impressive during his time at Anfield, but his then manager, Benitez always demanded more from the attacker.
“Rafa would say. ‘Well done for scoring three goals but you lost the ball 10 times…’ That was how Rafa was and that was his way of getting more out of you, he would always demand a little bit more,” he stressed.
Torres returned to Atletico, initially on loan in 2015. His move to the Spanish capital club was made permanent a year later and the striker is set to leave his current employers after the end of the 2017/18 season.
