Torres: "We’re really excited to go to Melbourne"
The striker analyses the two matches that we will play in Melbourne and Geelong.
After closing the traditional two-week pre-season in Los Ángeles de San Rafael and beat Numancia in our first friendly match, the team will fly on Tuesday to Australia to play Tottenham Hotspur (29/07 at 12:00 pm) and Melbourne Victory (31/07 at 6:0 am). Personally, Fernando Torres reaches the tour after scoring in the 0-2 win of our team in the first test of the pre-season. We discuss with our ‘9’ the trip the team will go on.
For Fernando, playing in Australia is a great opportunity for team and supporters to enjoy together. “We’re really excited to go to Melbourne to meet our fans. I know that we have a lot of supporters and fans there, and clearly they don't have the chance to see the team over there so it’s going to be a great opportunity for them to meet the team, the players and we will try to have time to meet them and spend some time with them because we don’t know if we’re going to have another chance to play in Australia,” he said.
Despite the matches being friendly, the team will face them with the utmost seriousness. “For us, the pre-season is the most important part of the year. We have to train with intensity, play with intensity. The games are important, not just the result, also the performance and the intensity we can play with. We have to prepare all the games from the beginning to be ready for the season,” he commented.
In addition, we will face strong rivals such as Tottenham, an old acquaintance of Torres. “It’s an amazing club, they have amazing fans. When I was in England, it was always special to go to White Hart Lane and play against them,” he confessed.
For our forward, the Spurs are a team with great potential: “Pochettino is doing a great job mixing these talented young players they have with more experienced players. They’re doing things really well. Last season they were really close to winning the Premiere League and they are on their way, but in the future they will do it,” he noted. Despite the difficulty of the rival, the player from the ranks takes on the challenge eagerly. “It’s going to be a difficult test and these are the kind of games we like to play, so we’re really looking forward to facing Tottenham,” he stressed.
After playing our first opponent, it will be the turn for Melbourne Victory. “We’re going to Geelong, we know we also have fans there. It will be really nice to go there and play against an Australian team. I’m sure for us it’s going to be one more game of precision so we have to push from the first game, and it’s going to be like a final. For us, every game is important,” he reflected.
The home-grown player is looking forward to going to Australia, a place he has always been attracted to. “It’s the first time Atlético de Madrid is going to Australia, it’s my first time as well, so I’m really excited. I’ve been looking forward to going on holidays many times and in the end I didn’t go, so it’s nice to have this opportunity to go there. Australia is one of the places everyone wants to visit,” he noted.
Our ‘9’ believes that these tours are very important for our sport. “I think football around the world is growing so fast and from all the continents, Australia is not an exception. Hopefully the visit of Atlético de Madrid can help to develop football in a good way and hopefully we can be an example for other teams going there in the future,” he concluded.
