Spain just won the FIFA World Cup following a grueling match against Argentina. And it was all thanks to Ferran Torres scoring in the 106th minute, capping off a dramatic extra-time thriller. Now, he’s being hailed as the hero of Spain‘s triumph—but just four years ago, he found himself in the biggest career rut of his life.
In 2022, the Spanish forward was grappling with a mental health crisis; the then-21-year-old had hit rock bottom after his €55 million ($62.8 million) move from Manchester City to La Liga club Barcelona. Torres was struggling to handle the pressure that came with his talent’s high price tag, just as he was recovering from a preseason leg injury and crushing Europa League loss to Eintracht Frankfurt.
“I found myself in a bottomless pit, and I could not see a way out,” Torres told reporters in 2023. “It had never happened to me before. That was the moment when I decided to work with a psychologist.
“I lost my confidence. Everything was affecting me,” he continued. “Seeing [a psychologist] will become increasingly normalised in football. There are weeks when I don’t go and others when I go three times. We don’t always talk about football, we also talk about my private life.”
