Lewandowski had his revenge. Above all, Ferran Torres had it. On a night of rotations —”We are in a very intense calendar, the boys are training well and it is good to have fresh players to recover people,” warned Sergio Alegre, Xavi’s collaborator in the preview of the game against Cádiz—, the Pole was reunited with the goal and Ferran Torres gave himself a bit of peace. Gasoline for the undermined self-esteem of the former Valencia striker. “I work to show my football. It was in a short time of minutes. Every time the coach gives me minutes, I will show the football that I have inside. It’s hard to show everything you want, because of the pressure and stuff, and today [por ayer] I think that both the team and I have played a good game”, stressed Ferran Torres. “He has played one of the best games since he has been at Barcelona. I am especially happy for him”, added Xavi.
The succession of casualties, some due to injury (Dembélé and Pedri), others due to suspension (Araujo), left Barcelona without their main weapons, according to the coaching staff. “There are few players in the world who have one on one, Pedri is the best in the last pass, Ronald interprets all defensive actions well”, explained the Barça staff. And Lewandowski? “He is not at his best,” insisted the same sources. Until Cádiz, the Pole accumulated a goal in the last six games in the League and in the Sports City they saw him restless. “He gets very angry when he doesn’t score,” explains a Barça employee. “Too much,” he insisted. And Lewandowski, who is the only one who does not enter into the rotation policies, had his moment against Cádiz. The Pole needs it. No one, in any case, needs a great game more than Ferran Torres.
The Valencian forward arrived at a price of gold, if one takes into account the economic situation of the club in the winter market of last season. But the tense sporting moment, far from the Champions League positions, led Barcelona’s sports management to knock on Manchester City’s door. Guardiola’s team wanted to get rid of Sterling, but Barça insisted on Ferran Torres. And he paid 55 million, plus 10 in variables for the Valencian striker. “The variables are easy to meet,” they explained, at the time, in the sports area. The price of the transfer and the moment in which Barça made him put Ferran Torres on target.
“In his first season he helped us a lot with his goals,” he justifies in the sports area. The defense is for the seven goals in the 26 games that Ferran Torres played in the 2022-2023 campaign. The problem, for Ferran Torres, was that Xavi Hernández insisted on renewing Dembélé’s contract and in the Camp Nou offices they wanted Raphinha. Both the French and the Brazilian prefer to play on the right wing of the attack. A situation that left Ferran Torres third in the Barca coach’s consideration as a winger. “Ferran is also comfortable on the left. There are alternatives. There are people at an optimal level”, said the coach, who like Pep Guardiola, welcomes using the Valencian as a center forward. A new setback for Ferran: Lewandowski. There is no one who takes the Pole out of eleven.
Ferran Torres, then, his confidence was undermining The Spanish team, starting three of the four games for La Roja in Qatar, did not even raise his morale. But the former Valencia striker did not want to give up. “He comes to train on the days that they have a party. He is a good boy. He’s the type you want to do well. He tries hard, ”explains an employee of the club. He “sacrifices himself, he runs for the team. He helps the side, makes defensive aids. People value it for the goals, tunnels… but we look at other things. He has a spectacular attitude, ”said Xavi.
But in the coaching staff they needed more than vitamin in the week. Xavi and his staff are looking for performance over the weekend. And Ferran responded against Cádiz. A good individual action by Ferran Torres ended in Barcelona’s first goal, in a duel in which the Catalans had a hard time breaking Sergio González’s team. His goal was missing and Xavi knew it. For this reason, the Barça coach, when he was sending Raphinha to the field, chose to replace Lewandowski to leave Ferran Torres (11 games without scoring in the League) and Ansu Fati (12) on the field. Fati was replaced by Ángel Alarcón, who made his debut in the first team, in the 85th minute. Neither Ansu nor Ferran, in any case, broke their scoring drought. At least, Ferran Torres took the ovation from the Camp Nou. “It is a pride that they chant my name. It remains to work, the difficult thing is to stabilize ”, closed Ferran.
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