April 8, 2008. A ferocious Champions League quarter-final at Anfield between Liverpool and Arsenal was ebbing and flowing, as it reached the 69th minute.
This might have been the last eight of Europe's top competition but it was being played with no-holds barred intensity of a Premier League collision.
The score was poised at 1-1 (2-2 on aggregate) when a Peter Crouch flick-on arrived at the feet of Liverpool's number nine in the Kop End penalty area.
Fernando Torres seared into the hearts and minds of Liverpool fans with breathtaking goals
Torres scored a vital goal as Liverpool beat Arsenal in the 2008 Champions League quarters
Atletico Madrid - 111
Liverpool - 81
Chelsea - 45
AC Milan - 1
Spain - 60
Suddenly, it felt like time had stood still. Fernando Torres, a picture of calm in the mayhem, took one touch, then another and another.
Before everyone realised what was happening, he had rifled a right-footed drive into the roof of Manuel Almunia's net to spark a noise that made the stadium shake.
The goal is easily recalled without the need to watch it on YouTube. The best of the best separate themselves by doing things on a football pitch that sear into your memory and during a golden spell on Merseyside that is what Torres was: the best of the best.
It was a dream start for Torres, who scored a sublime goal on his Anfield debut vs Chelsea
He was the most feared central striker in Europe when he played for Liverpool. This observer has chosen that Arsenal goal as a personal favourite but, in truth, there were another 10 or 15 instances that could have been used as examples.
There was the debut strike at Anfield, for instance, when he wrapped Chelsea defender Tal Ben-Haim up in knots before finishing like an assassin. The muggings of Nemanja Vidic at Old Trafford and Rio Ferdinand at Anfield; goals to settle Merseyside derbies, an astonishing strike against Blackburn.
Torres was the first signing that Liverpool made when you felt they were moving into a different level: here was a player who everyone in Europe wanted but Rafa Benitez won the day, shattering the club record transfer fee, to sign him from Atletico Madrid for more than £20million.
His career, of course, was more than just those years at Anfield. He is loved unconditionally by Atletico supporters following his two spells there; he played for Chelsea and won a raft of honours, including the Champions League, but the fit was never the same. Blue was never his colour.
Red, by contrast, suited him down to the ground. The first test for him – as it was for any new signing – came in training. Xabi Alonso, for example, endeared himself immediately to his team-mates in 2004 with the way the first pass he swept away, clean and precise.
