Ferran Torres

Written by David Álvarez, Juan I. Irigoyen, Ladislao Moñino, Jon Rivas, Rafael Pineda and Juan L. Cudeiro for El País:

Ferrán Torres avoided the pressure of playing for the national team under Luis Enrique, his father-in-law, but has had no choice but to deal with that of being a €55m signing for Barcelona, who brought him back to Spain from Manchester City in 2022.

Mateu Alemany, the former Barça director of football, called him “my boy” when he negotiated with his City counterpart, Txiki Begiristain, but the striker prefers to be known as “the shark”. “At the time [I came] I wasn’t ready for the pressure. It came on me all of a sudden. It’s like you go into a spiral, and I realised I was in a bottomless pit,” he said. He has since become “an indestructible Ferran” after an encounter last summer with an MMA star: “I went to the US on holiday and I met Ilia Topuria and his entourage and I saw how they made him believe he was the best, gave him that unconditional support and I saw the confidence he had. I went on that trip as one Ferran and came back as another.”