Breaking Down the Role Fernando Torres Will Play for Atletico Madrid in 2016/17

Fernando Torres ended the season as one of La Liga’s most in-form players, rattling in the goals and generally looking somewhere back to his former effective self for Atletico Madrid, to the point that he was an undisputed starter in their UEFA Champions League final.

For a player who struggled to find form or goals for the best part of five years at Chelsea and AC Milan, it’s quite a turnaround for the Spanish striker, who has earned himself a new deal at the Vicente Calderon, which should be close to being signed after Diego Simeone confirmed talks in mid-May.

It means Torres will continue to wear the No. 9 shirt next season for Los Rojiblancos, but with the club certain to bring in a new-name striker regardless, Torres is still likely to have to battle on a weekly basis to show he deserves to start matches domestically and in Europe.

 

Adebayor syndrome?

Cynical though it may seem, the club and other onlookers have to consider a possibility: Was Torres’ upturn in effort and output simply a product of him coming to the end of his stay at Atletico?

To put it in imaginable context: At how many clubs has Emmanuel Adebayor enjoyed a productive short-term loan spell to win a permanent contract, only to then fall well short of expectations and inevitably be bombed out a year or so later?

In Torres’ case perhaps the motivation could have been more sporting than mercenary, not wanting to leave his boyhood club and original professional team, but the end result is the same—with his future assured and not needing to prove himself in the final three months of a season, can he maintain the same sort of form on a regular basis?

To be completely fair and consider the opposite side of the argument, maybe it doesn’t matter what the motivations were. Atletico were in dire need of a centre-forward in form after struggling for goals for a while, and Torres was the one who provided the team with one—not €30 million Jackson Martinez, not €20 million Luciano Vietto.

One is gone and the other …

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