He may be known as The Kid, or El Nino, but within months of arriving in England with Liverpool the Anfield faithful were talking of Fernando Torres in the same breath as Dalglish, Fowler, Owen and Rush.
81 goals in four seasons persuaded Chelsea to part with £50m in order to bring Torres to Stamford Bridge in the 2011 January transfer window. Although he is yet tto match his Liverpool performances in a Chelsea shirt, Torres remains one of the most deadly strikers in the world.
Armed with pace, touch, movement and devastating finishing, Torres made the transition from the Spanish La Liga to the rough and tumble of the Premiership with hardly a break in his elegant stride.
Before his £21m transfer to Liverpool from Atletico Madrid, Torres had been the target for a host of top sides, with Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United all interested. Anyone who had followed Torres' career with Atletico Madrid and Spain up until that point would not have been surprised.
At just 17 the precociously talented Torres was the youngest player to play for Atletico and the club's youngest captain two years later. By the time he left the Madrid club he had notched up 82 goals in 214 appearances.
Torres didn't only continue his fantastic goalscoring record on Merseyside, he stepped it up a notch or nine. In his debut season for Liverpool, he scored 24 league goals, eclipsing Ruud Van Nistelrooy's record for the highest scoring debut top flight season for a foreign import. He took this total to 33 in all competitions and whilst he wasn't able to equal this figure in any of his next four seasons in a red shirt, he established himself as one of the best strikers in England.
His link up play with Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, in particular, captivated the Kop faithful. Their link-up play seemed, at times, telepathic. Fernando's form saw him named in the PFA Team of the Year in successive seasons, but injury disrupted his final two seasons at Anfield.
Nonetheless, even as he struggled for form, Torres still posed a huge threat for opposition defences. So much so, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich opened his chequebook to the tune of £50 million to take him to London. The transfer shocked football, making Torres the most expensive player in Premier League history and the costliest ever Spaniard, too.
Ironically, his debut for Chelsea came in a 1-0 defeat to the Reds and Torres spent the rest of the season struggling to regain his best form. El Nino looked jaded, and understandably considering he hadn't had a break from football in four years, given his international commitments. With a summer's rest and a full pre-season behind him, though, there are few who are writing him off for the 2011-12 season.
Torres made his full international debut for Spain as a 19-year-old in September 2003 against Portugal and was a member of the Euro 2004 squad and the 2006 World Cup side in Germany.
In February 2008 Torres scored three times against Middlesbrough, repeating the feat 11 days later against West Ham to become the first Liverpool player to score hat-tricks in consecutive matches since 1946. The Kop knows a gem of a player when they see one, and they quickly took him to their hearts.
His exploits at Euro 2008 for Spain confirmed him as a truly world-class player, however. After a superb tournament alongside strike partner David Villa, his clinical strike in the final against Germany capped another superb display for the Spaniards and brought them their first major trophy for 24 years. Torres, already a favourite in Madrid and Liverpool, was now the darling of the whole of Spain.
Two years later, in South Africa, Torres added a World Cup winning medal to his collection. He played a heroic role in extra time in the final, playing until the final whistle, despite having ruptured a groin muscle and being in extreme pain, as Spain had already used all their substitutes.