Just got back from a few days in Madrid, a city which is still mourning the loss of its favourite son.
Fernando Torres is not just a footballer to the people of Madrid, he is an icon who inspires the most incredible loyalty and a cult hero who is worshipped like no other player in this football mad city.
I can't think of a single Liverpool player who has inspired sililarly strong feelings in the last couple of decades - the last one was probably Kenny Dalglish - and, while such extremes of emotion might have their roots in the Latin temprament of your average Madrileno, there is no doubt that their devotion to him is fired by their belief that El Nino is the real deal.

In the taxi from Barajas Airport to my hotel on Grand Via the cabbie took all of three seconds to start talking about Torres - and he was a Real fan!
"Do you like football?" he asked.
"Too right I do, I'm from Liverpool," I replied.
"You have just signed the best player in all of Madrid," he responded. "I am a Real fan but Torres is the best player."
Names like van Nistelrooy (who scored 10 goals more than El Nino last season), Robinho, Casillas and Cannavaro immediately flashed through my mind. Could Fernando Torres really be better than those players who have just inspired Real to an unlikely La Liga title?
But the cabbie continued: "If he played for Real he would have scored 30 goals. Atletico are a bad team, he was their only good player.
"I promise he will score goals for your team."
That's quite a promise and should Torres fail to live up to this top billing I'll be back to Madrid to hunt down thus taxi driver and reclaim the tip I gave him.
Maybe he was just telling me the things he thought I'd want to hear in the hope that the excitement he stirred in me would add an extra few euros to his tip. Maybe if I'd got in and told him I was from Manchester (just imagine having to say that!) he'd have told me that I should be smiling because Liverpool had just signed the biggest bum in all of Madrid.
The thought that he'd charmed a bigger tip out of me lasted all of ten seconds, until I checked in at my hotel and the receptionist spotted my address.
"Aah, Liverpool," he said. "Are you a Liverpool fan?"
"Yes," I replied and before I could say anything else I was given another detailed explanation of why Torres will go on to become a hero of the Kop and could turn Rafa Benitez's side into genuine title challengers.
With Torres being the big talking point of my trip, a visit to Atletico's Vincente Calderon stadium in the south of the city was a must.
When I got there I paid the 6 euro admission fee to the club museum and the girl on reecption handed me a team poster which featured Torres prominently.
"He's our player now," I told her. "Is he any good?"
She looked at me with a mixture of bemusement that I could ask such a question and sadness that her hero would no longer be turning out for her beloved Atletico.
"He is your player now but his heart is still with Atletico," she said.
"He is one of the best players in Europe, you will see."
She then showed me into a small cinema where a short film was to be shown telling the Atletico story.
Seriously, it seemed like 14 minutes of the 15 minute video featured El Nino. If it wasn't for Kiko and Luis Aragones (yes, he was a great player before he became known as a manager with a knack of racially abusing opposition players) it would have been the Fernando Torres show.
God knows what his team mates thought of all the attention he was getting. Maybe they were just happy that he was taking all the attention away from them while they failed to achieve anything of note in La Liga?
Madrid really is Torres-mad. I thought that maybe it was possible that it was his image that the people loved, that he could even be a Beckham like figure who attracts devotion because of his style rather than his substance.
But football fans are not fools. For players to become heroes to so many on the terraces they have to have something special about them.
The media can create superstars but only supporters can create heroes.
Fernando Torres is one of Madrid's biggest heroes. If he performs for Liverpool as he did at Atletico then there is no reason why he cannot go on to become as big a hero at Anfield as he clearly was at the Vincente Calderon.
And then it will be Liverpool cabbies who cannot stop talking about El Nino.

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