Six matches, seven shots, seven goals.
What more could a side ask of a number nine? And if that number nine is not even the team’s main striker, if he comes on only as a substitute, how should those figures be read? Are they not remarkable? The name of that PSG number nine is Ferran Torres.
He has never quite become a major star in world football in that sense. Yet the goal that brought Spain the World Cup trophy for a second time was his. The only goal of the final against Argentina at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey two months ago also won him the man-of-the-match award. By a strange coincidence, he was not the first choice of Spain coach Luis de la Fuente in that match either. He came on in the 62nd minute.
Even after such a feat at the World Cup, Ferran Torres has not come near the stardom of Rodri or Yamal in the Spain squad. So it was somewhat unnoticed that he moved from Barcelona to Paris for the new season. PSG made no great fanfare about him either, holding no lavish event to present him. Luis Enrique did not in fact take him as an essential part of his side, but as an alternative. Torres, though, did not want to remain merely an alternative.
He did not take long after arriving in Paris. Two goals off the bench in his first Ligue 1 match against Rennes, a hat-trick on his Champions League debut in a PSG shirt — what an unbelievable start. The Torres he was at Barcelona seems to have become an upgraded version of himself in Paris: sharper, more ruthless. Within a few weeks he has become one of the principal weapons of Luis Enrique’s attack.
Take last night’s classico against Marseille. PSG were not scoring. Coach Enrique needed someone who could score and change the match. Torres came on in the 59th minute. In the 66th he scored to put PSG ahead. Marseille equalised six minutes later through Angel Gomes, but that parity lasted only three minutes. Marquinhos scored in the 75th to put PSG ahead again, and that was how the match finished.
The win gave PSG not only three points but the confidence of shaking off their early-season stiffness. Three consecutive wins across all competitions suggest PSG are finding their rhythm again. And at the centre of that rhythm is Torres.
He has appeared in six matches for PSG across all competitions this season, three in the starting eleven, though never for the full match, and three as a substitute. In all he has been on the pitch for 325 minutes, has taken seven shots on goal, and all seven have been goals. That is a goal every 47 minutes. The French website Foot Mercato reports that the only player ahead of Torres for a fine start at PSG is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who scored eight in his first six matches at the club. Is Torres about to become another Ibra?
The comparison is no longer just talk; the numbers say it. Torres himself, though, does not want to be carried away by figures. His answer is straightforward: “When you get a chance you have to take it. Sometimes luck is with you, sometimes it is not. You have to keep trying, again and again.”
But these figures are not simply a story of being touched by luck. Positioning in the box, reading team-mates’ movement, finding space and the accuracy of the final touch — taken together, a flawless striker of the kind a coach wants.
Torres’s performances have therefore left Enrique in a quandary too. PSG’s attack is full of stars such as Ousmane Dembele, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Desire Doue. Torres, who arrived in Paris as a substitute option, has now begun bargaining hard for a place in the starting eleven. With four goals he is also the club’s top scorer in Ligue 1. He is becoming hard to ignore.
Luis Enrique understands that too, and has not hidden his satisfaction with his new forward. He said: “All the new arrivals are helping the team. Ferran in particular is playing wonderfully. He has an excellent ability to find the space behind the defence and to use it. When you have a player like him in the middle, the game becomes easy. He is in his best form now.”
And Torres? He is not greatly interested in talking about not being a regular starter. Nor does he need to. The numbers are speaking for him and putting pressure on Enrique — pressure the PSG coach may not be able to ignore for very long.