6 great footballers who had debuts to forget
Your first time is always special. Your first love. Your first kiss. Your first motorbike. Your first job. And if you are the kind of lucky soul that makes a living kicking a ball around a green pitch, your first game. Always special! Whether it is your first ever professional appearance or your first appearance wearing the colours of your new team.The opposition will always attack you – be it Spurs fans yelling “Who are ya?” at a young Wayne Rooney (they know now!) or Leicester fans needling Rio Ferdinand and Leeds United fans over his exorbitant transfer fee (the Foxes won 3-0 that day). Even your own fans will have their doubts regarding your quality and will be wondering whether their club made the right choice in giving you a shot. So, everyone remembers their debuts. Some, though, however great they have become, would do anything not to bring back memories of their first day at the job. We take a look at six great players who had debuts that they would very much like to forget!
#1 Fernando Torres
Match: Chelsea 0–1 Liverpool (6 February 2011)
When Roman Abrahamovic and 50 million quid came a-calling, Liverpool cult hero and legend-in-the-making Fernando Torres decided to leave behind the Merseyside docks and move South via the M6 and the M40 to the plush environs of Fulham (the borough) and Chelsea (the football club).
As that most remarkable of scriptwriters, fate, would have it, El Nino’s debut for the Blues’ came against his former club, Liverpool. Despite having just recovered from a major knee surgery the past summer and suffering from a resultant (and quite natural) dip in form, expectations were pretty darn high for the charismatic Spaniard.
Walking out to chants of “We’ve got Fernando” from the Stamford Bridge faithful and banners of “He who betrays will always walk alone” from the travelling Merseysiders, Torres delivered the sort of performance that Chelsea would become accustomed to over the next couple of years – the underwhelming sort.
A shot that went handsomely high and wide of Pepe Reina’s goal after having been presented the ball by a wayward Liverpudlian pass (and having only the notoriously shaky Martin Skrtel in front of him), a spurned chance (this time, admittedly, due to a brilliant tackle from the indefatigable Jamie Carragher) and a couple of wayward passes that ended promising Chelsea counter-attacks were the stand out incidents in an insipid performance – much to the delight of the travelling contingent.
Even then, though, few would have guessed that it would take Torres another couple of months and 903 playing minutes before he bagged his first goal in a Blues’ shirt – the first of only 45 goals in 172 matches for the Londoners.
Liverpool meanwhile spent the fifty million quid on the remarkable genius of Luis Suarez and… erm, Andy Carroll.