Fernando Torres appears to be heading home for the new year.
Torres will re-join Atletico Madrid after the Spanish club agreed to take him from AC Milan on an 18-month loan deal in exchange for Alessio Cerci, Sky Italia’s Peppe Di Stefano reported Wednesday.
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Chelsea, Torres’ parent club, is likely to sanction his return to his boyhood club, and the players and teams should finalize the deal by next week, Spanish newspaper Marca reports.
Torres, 30, joined AC Milan from Chelsea in August on a two-year loan deal, but his misery has continued in Serie A (Italy’s first division). Torres only has scored one goal in 10 games and he hasn’t played for the Italian club since Nov. 23. The Guardian reports AC Milan wants to end his loan spell prematurely, but Chelsea does not have room for him in its squad.
Torres starred for Atletico Madrid in the formative stages of his career before moving to Liverpool in 2007. Torres was a Liverpool hero for most of his three-and-a-half years at Anfield, but he left in acrimony when the club sold him to Chelsea for a then-record £50 million ($77.8 million) in January 2011.
Torres famously struggled to settle, win a regular place in the starting lineup and score goals at Chelsea, and the Blues agreed last summer to send him to Italy for the final two years of his mammoth contract.
Torres hasn’t thrived in Italian soccer during the last four months. Now Atletico Madrid seems ready to have succeeded in an opportunistic rescue mission for its former captain.
Reporters asked Enrique Cerezo about the Torres rumor Wednesday, and the Atletico Madrid president refused to confirm or deny whether the Spanish international’s return was imminent.
“He is not here but that does not mean that he won’t be,” Cerezo said, according to the BBC.
Torres debuted for Atletico Madrid in 2001 (at age 17) and captained the club from 2003 to 2007. Torres experienced the sport’s highs and lows during his foreign adventures. Now it looks like he’s going home to rediscover peace and the opposing teams’ goals.
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@SuperSportTV
