The Pole's unavailability for the Copa del Rey final is a big blow for the Blaugrana, but they do have a potentially deadly replacement
Ferran Torres attempted to fill the considerable void left behind in Barcelona's attack by the injured Robert Lewandowski in Tuesday's Liga clash with Mallorca. As auditions go, it was hardly impressive.
Barca won the game thanks to Dani Olmo's second-half strike, but Torres didn't play particularly well and copped quite a bit of criticism for failing to exhibit the kind of killer instinct one would expect from a forward nicknamed 'The Shark'.
However, whereas such a setback would have once hit Torres hard, now he's made from sterner stuff. Consequently, it would be a major surprise if he does not get another chance to fill in for Lewandowski in Saturday's Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid. Because if he's proven anything over the past couple of years, it's that he is nothing if not resilient.
AFPUnbearable weight of massive talent
"Football is brutal," Ferran told earlier this year, "especially when you break into the elite at a young age, and even more so at a club like Barca."
He obviously knows this from personal experience. Torres had already proven himself one of the most promising young players in world football, at both Valencia and Manchester City, when he arrived at Camp Nou in January 2022. But he was still only 21 at the time.
What's more, he had been signed for €55 million (£47m/$62.5m) – a colossal sum of money for the cash-strapped Catalans. The pressure on him to justify such a significant outlay was, thus, enormous, and it proved too heavy a weight for him to carry for an awfully long time.
AdvertisementAFPShark mentality
Ferran scored seven times in his first 26 appearances for Barca, but he was clearly struggling to play with any great consistency or confidence. "I fell into a bottomless well," he later admitted, "and I did not know how to get out."
Luckily, he sought help, and began seeing a psychologist after picking up a minor foot injury ahead of the 2022-23 season that hindered his attempts to lock down a regular starting spot in Xavi's Barcelona side. "It was a very tough experience but, at the same time, also one of the best," he explained.
Another turning point arrived when he befriended UFC fighter Ilias Topuria, who taught Ferran the importance of positivity and perseverance.
"I connected with him from the very beginning," the versatile attacker told of his trip to Florida to watch his compatriot in action in June 2023. Before the fight, he told me: 'This guy's not going to make it through the first round.' That's when I thought, 'Wow! I want to be like him.' I went there as one Ferran and came back as another."
Topuria was also indirectly responsible for Torres earning himself a new nickname that same summer: "It came from the fact that I mentioned during a lunch with the Spanish national team that Ilias had said in an interview that he was the shark [in his division], meaning he didn't have to fight any fish for food," Torres said on podcast. "My team-mates started using shark emojis with me on Instagram and it just snowballed from there."
The 'Shark mentality', as Torres called it, is essentially a state of mind, the idea that an apex predator need not fear anyone or anything.
“It basically means never giving up, always pushing forward, never being afraid," Torres told in March of this year. "Failure is part of football – it’s a game of mistakes. The ones who fail are the ones who are trying."
AFP'Invisible work'
Ferran's renewed drive and determination almost immediately saved his Barca career. There was constant speculation during the summer of 2023 that Barca were willing to sell the versatile winger to raise funds to strengthen their squad elsewhere. However, he had absolutely no intention of leaving, and even joked about turning off his phone in order to avoid having to discuss a possible transfer to another club.
Instead, he focused on getting himself in the best possible physical condition to prove his worth to Barca, which meant doing what he calls "the invisible work" – all of the hard graft done behind the scenes, in the gym and out on the road, that the fans don't see.
"I talked to my physical trainer about doing double sessions every day," he revealed. "I told my nutritionist I wanted to lose three kilos, and my physio that I wanted to do two hours of treatment. It was non-negotiable. What keeps you at the elite level is discipline and perseverance; motivation only lasts for days and doesn't carry you to the big goal."
Getty Images Sport'I'm going to continue at Barca'
As 'big goals' go, Ferran's was rather ambitious: breaking into the Barca team. However, progress was unquestionably made last season, as Torres scored 11 times in 42 appearances. He would have racked up even more goals, too, had it not been for a hamstring problem that ruled him out of action for nearly two months. The timing was cruel, too, as the injury arrived just over a week after he'd hit a hat-trick against Real Betis.
The disappointing end to his 2023-24 campaign led to further speculation over his future, but Ferran remained defiant. "It's not that I want to continue at Barca," he clarified in an interview with last summer, "it's that I'm going to continue at Barca!"