The National Team lights up Ferran

Ferran Torres (29-2-2000) has faith that Sevilla will clarify his ideas today in the match against Portugal. The city inspires him. In La Cartuja he scored his only hat-trick as a national team player on the famous day of the 6-0 defeat of Germanyone of the greatest soccer expressions of what Luis Enrique dreams of with the National Team. The case of Ferran, the difference between his numbers in the National Team and in Barça, deserves an analysis. Under Luis Enrique he has scored 13 goals in 24 games (0.54). With Xavi, 7 in 26 (0.26). His average, therefore, is double with Spain.

Landed in Barcelona last January after Barça disbursed 55 million euros to Manchester City, although some sources assure that the transfer went up to 62 million, Ferran started lucid. After a dark debut in the Super Cup, in which he accused the inactivity of the injury (fractured right foot) that occurred in the Nations League semifinal against Italy, in Milan, he barely saw the ball against Madrid in Arabia. Then, however, just a week later, he scored a great goal at San Mamés, in the Cup; and then he debuted in the League in Vitoria and also scored against Atlético de Madrid.

Everything seemed to be going well for Ferran who, however, began to go into a tailspin. Some voices around Barça understand that the player began to put too much pressure on himself. The price of him, and his own desire to succeed, have generated anxiety to the point of being close to tears in a match like the one against Naples, despite the fact that that night he had scored a penalty goal. Beyond one-off games like the one at the Bernabéu, the rest of his half-season at Barça hasn’t been excellent. And his gestures of self-frustration, some perhaps exaggerated because he gives things to the team, have been growing.

In Barcelona there is already a certain debate installed about whether Ferran is worth the price that was paid for him. And you have to know how to live with that. Ferran is a devastating player with spaces, as he showed precisely against Madrid or as he has also shown with the National Team. His match against Germany, like his goals against Italy in the semifinal of the last Nations on another of his memorable nights, speak of a player with a special instinct for attacking space. Ferran, who has always declared his preference for playing on the right wing, however, lacks the ability to overwhelm in one-on-one situations on the wing, where he lacks the ingenuity to improvise with his dribbling. Without spaces, soccer is complicated for him, because what he does best is attack them. Also, you’re having a hard time locating the angles. He has wasted a huge number of clear chances since he played for Barça, obsessed with looking for corners more than the goal itself. To be a super elite, effectiveness is mandatory.

For Luis Enrique, however, it is indisputable. Capable of maintaining high levels of intensity during matches, tactically obedient and with a tremendous physical ability to stand out time and time again. Apparently, in the Selection the pressure and ghosts are removed and it is expressed better. Seville is the best place to get inspired.