He looked sharper than ever at the start of last season and, although he has failed to maintain his form, he is unlikely to let it get him down after that, having been very good with the Spanish selection at the Euro, notably against Albania. Throughout the season, Ferran Torres was regularly nicknamed “tiburón”, Spanish for shark. The origin of this nickname dates back to UFC fighter Ilias Topuria and some of his Barcelona teammates, as he revealed during an interview with The Wild Project podcast (via MD).
“The shark thing came when I told my Barcelona teammates, while we were eating, that in an interview Ilias Topuria had responded that here he was the shark, that he didn’t have to fight with the big fish. My teammates started replying to me on Instagram with shark emojis, and it snowballed. »
Torres inspired by Topuria
Torres also revealed that a meeting with Topuria last summer led to his change in mentality. “I connected with him from the first moment. That’s when I said to myself, “I want to be like him.” I was Ferran and I came back as someone else.
“If I met the Ferran of two years ago, I would slap him and tell him to wake up. He doesn’t know what awaits him. I know what it’s like to hit rock bottom and I don’t want to go back there. I think all the time about how to improve myself and extend my career as much as possible. »
