Lucas Torreira: Garra Charrua

[Batman]

This fan base is so damaged, can't enjoy a player without mentally transferring him to Barcelona already.

Especially when you consider their academy isn't as good as it used to be, they can't outspend many of the other continental clubs and Messi is the wrong side of 30. They'll be reverting to what they were pre Pep in the next couple of years IMO.

 

[GeorgiaGunner]

Cracking player. Excellent signing from a boss who's put nary a foot wrong in his first few months. Couple more shrewd moves and we'll be right back at the top.

 

[Aussie_gunner123]

If Torreira consistently stays in this form & stays as good as he is now, no doubt he'll be a wanted man within a few years & be worth double what we signed him for at least. Other clubs will have the funds to sign him aswell so we will have to hope he continually likes it with us & wants to resign when off contract. How many years is his contract for anyway?

 

[rich 1990]

Been here two months and people are worried about losing him already, pitiful.

 

[Maybe]

We will lose him one way or the other like every other player, I will just enjoy the time while he is with us.

 

[Mark Tobias]

We will lose him one way or the other like every other player, I will just enjoy the time while he is with us.

What defeatist mentality. You must be fun at parties.

I don;t think we will lose him in a hurry. I think we'll be back to winning ways in the next three years. I'm more worried about losing Emery.

 

[L3T5 PL4Y]

I do wonder about Torreira and Guendouzi leaving at some point but its part of the game really. Long time to get to that point. Important thing is we have different people doing the dealings now and so far transfer business hasn't given reason for major doubts.

Scars take time to heal, though. Deep scars.

 

[Maybe]

What defeatist mentality. You must be fun at parties.

Why is that? Every player that plays for us can offer maximum 15 years or be sold before that... My thought that we will lose him one way or the other doesn't necessary mean that we will sell him after 2 years or someone will take him after his contract is finished, he could also end his career here like Koscienly end we lose him in that way which is great. What is important is that we enjoy while he plays and not worry about else.

 

[Mark Tobias]

Why is that? Every player that plays for us can offer maximum 15 years or be sold before that... My thought that we will lose him one way or the other doesn't necessary mean that we will sell him after 2 years or someone will take him after his contract is finished, he could also end his career here like Koscienly end we lose him in that way which is great. What is important is that we enjoy while he plays and not worry about else.

Fair enough. Never ever met a fan who views football so long term though.

 

[Song Billong]

Let's get back to talking about the little champ

 

[Mark Tobias]

Let's get back to talking about the little champ

@OnlyOne you got competition here in terms of becoming a mod. Looks like old @Song Billong is keen too.


Are we expecting this lad to make it through to January without a break. Don't the Italians also get a break mid season?

 

[Fallout]

i'm more concerned he'll get injured. he's involved in a lot of duels that cause minor injuries during the match. not sure it's sustainable over the course of a season.

 

[Mark Tobias]

i'm more concerned he'll get injured. he's involved in a lot of duels that cause minor injuries during the match. not sure it's sustainable over the course of a season.

This is my secondary point.

 

[pigge]

Why is that? Every player that plays for us can offer maximum 15 years or be sold before that... My thought that we will lose him one way or the other doesn't necessary mean that we will sell him after 2 years or someone will take him after his contract is finished, he could also end his career here like Koscienly end we lose him in that way which is great. What is important is that we enjoy while he plays and not worry about else.

Why are you even saying it then?
"His career will go any way it can go just like other players" is what you are saying you meant with that.

 

[Wryer]

I'd say we need an able back up for him, already. He's the binder to the team but he cannot play every single game.

 

[A_G]

Telegraph did a piece on him today:

Eight years ago, in the Uruguayan town of Fray Bentos, word came through that Lucas Torreira was in trouble. Barely a teenager, he had recently left for the bustling city of Montevideo, where he had joined the youth team of Peñarol in pursuit of a professional contract. It was a big club, a big city and a big opportunity. But now little Lucas was a long way from home, and a long way from help.

Torreira was supposed to be lodging in the capital, but it soon emerged that circumstances had changed and accommodation could no longer be provided. All of a sudden, Torreira had nowhere to go and no money to make the 200 mile journey home.

When the news reached the Institución Atlética 18 de Julio, Torreira’s boyhood club, there was no hesitation. “We had a collection between the club’s directors to manage the expenses and the paperwork needed to bring Lucas back,” says Hugo Ruiz, the club’s sporting co-ordinator. “When he became our player again, in the under-15s, I remember seeing on his face a mixture of gratitude and emotion that I still see now.”

That gratitude can also be seen on the back of Torreira’s right leg, where a tattoo of 18 de Julio’s crest is visible whenever he rolls down his socks. “He lived his whole childhood here,” Ruiz told Telegraph Sport. “His love for the club is unconditional.”

That tattoo no doubt serves as a reminder to Torreira of where he came from and what he went through in those early days. It is a permanent marker of those first steps he took on a journey that has carried him from Uruguay to Italy and then on to Arsenal, where he has already been hailed as the combative midfielder the fans have craved for years.

It has taken just 11 appearances in England for Torreira to demonstrate why Arsenal were willing to pay Sampdoria a total of £26.4m — £4.4m more than his release clause — in order to guarantee his signature. Arsenal knew what they wanted, and the size of the deal was a show of faith that is being further repaid with each passing game.

The numbers tell their own story of the 22-year-old’s impact. This season, Arsenal have played 442 minutes without him in the side, and 548 with him. Without him, they have scored nine goals and conceded 10. With him, they have scored 20 and conceded three. He has started just three games in the Premier League, and yet there are only seven midfielders who have made more interceptions and just three who have won more fouls in the entire division.

It is, by almost any measure, a remarkable start to life in a new country and a new league. But it is little more than would have been expected by those who have seen Torreira’s footballing transformation over the last five years.

“The truth is that Lucas was never shy,” says Ruiz, thinking back to Torreira’s childhood years at 18 de Julio, when he was half the size of many of his team-mates (he is only 5ft 6in now) but twice as vocal. “He always stood out from his colleagues for being a little leader of their friends. He was someone who was used to playing with people bigger than him. It was always clear that he was going to dedicate himself to football — it was just a matter of having that bit of luck that is needed to get to the big clubs.”

Torreira would have been forgiven for thinking his luck had run out when he was forced to return from Montevideo at the age of 14. But he regrouped and recharged alongside his family in Fray Bentos, and went back to the capital three years later to play for Montevideo Wanderers. Once there, he lived with his sister, who worked in a shopping centre, and he would save money by carrying his meals around in plastic containers.

It was from Montevideo that Torreira was taken to Pescara, in Italy, to trial alongside a small group of Uruguayans. He was not originally on the list of players invited to Europe, but he soon became the last man standing as the others were sent back home.

The scout who spotted Torreira, then a 17-year-old forward, was Pescara’s Roberto Druda. “His most impressive qualities were his close control, his eye for goal and his streetwise attitude,” Druda told Telegraph Sport. “But his defensive ability emerged as an unexpected gift.”

Those gifts were unearthed by Massimo Oddo, a World Cup winner with Italy who was managing the Pescara under-19s when Druda delivered Torreira. According to Torreira, he was told by Oddo that the best level he would ever reach as an attacker was Serie C, the third division. “He said ‘I want to try you in another position, in front of the defence,’” Torreira has said.

In these first few months, Torreira was so desperate to impress, and so afraid of missing any football through injury, that he did not tell Druda or the medical staff that he was suffering with agonising warts on one of his feet.

“I remember during this period of transformation, Oddo told me: ‘If you explain a tactical movement to Lucas once, he will put it into practice forever,’” says Druda, who saw how astute Torreira was becoming in his reading of the game. “In this growth phase, I thought he might be interesting for Juventus as a replacement for Andrea Pirlo.”

By the time Oddo had been promoted to the role of first-team manager, in May 2015, Torreira was ready to step up another level. And yet his rapid development in a new position did nothing to soften the emotional pain of leaving his country and his family. “In his first year at Pescara, Lucas suffered from homesickness,” Druda says. “He missed his friends, his family, his land.”

In fear of losing one of their brightest talents, Pescara would sometimes host Torreira’s father and brothers in Italy. “We had to make sure he did not give up on his dream,” says Druda. “It’s the dream of all Uruguayans — it’s the only opportunity to come out of poverty.”

Sampdoria came calling in July 2015, signing Torreira for around £1m but loaning him back to Pescara for another season. By now he was already being compared with Marco Verratti, the Paris Saint-Germain midfielder who had begun his career at Pescara, and it did not take long for Torreira to impress after joining Sampdoria. Over the next two campaigns, he made more tackles than any other midfielder in Serie A. Last season, he completed more passes than all but two midfielders in the division, and he was one of only three midfielders to make more than 100 tackles.

“If Torreira were 1.8 metres tall, he would already cost €100m and would be considered among the strongest playmakers in the world,” said Marco Giampaolo, the Sampdoria manager, last season. “He can play it short or long, wins the ball back, restarts play and always seems to know where the ball will be. He’ll go to a big club that does not care so much about his stature.”

Those words proved prophetic, but there was a World Cup to play before Torreira began life at Arsenal. Torreira has been fully embraced by his homeland since making his international debut in March, despite it being unusual for one of the country’s star players to have never played in the Uruguayan top division. Such is the warmth towards Torreira that one article in the Republica newspaper this summer was headlined: “The little Pacman who won the hearts of the Uruguayans.”

After Russia, and before pre-season with Arsenal, Torreira returned home to Fray Bentos, where he last year bought a butcher’s shop for his family (he named it ‘La 34’ after his shirt number at Sampdoria). On his arrival, he was mobbed by children at the airport. “He represents the reward for effort and sacrifice,” says Mildred Silva, the club secretary at 18 de Julio.

“When you are a child and you dream of these things, everything seems very far away," Torreira said during that brief journey home. “It’s amazing, to get to Uruguay, to see the affection of all these guys. It’s something magnificent, but it’s something that I have earned through a lot of sacrifice. I want to share happiness with all of them because they saw me grow up, they know how difficult everything was for me.”

 

[dashsnow17]

Telegraph did a piece on him today:

A team of Torreira’s would conquer the world, but one should be enough for the PL.

 

[pigge]

He's a Torreira amongst men. Cant help but Love him

 

[Eduardo_da_Silva]

Give him a 10 years contract, Wengers office, 1000 seats at the emirates. Give him anything he wants. Our most important player at the moment and final proof how much differenc Kante could have made for both Wenger and us. Love him and best buy in the last 10 years.

 

[gunner4lyfe]

His interception led to the first goal. We have needed a player like this for YEARS. Thank goodness we got him while he was under the radar .