Fernando Torres’ goal in the final of the European Championships, coupled with his on the pitch performances at Euro 2008 resulted in a floud of visitors to the striker’s website. Visits to the forward’s official webpage during June multiplied by three, with fans from all over the world logging-on to find out the latest news on Fernando Torres.

The impressive figures from June brought with them four million pages viewed, and fifteen million file downloads; an average of 500.000 a day! The busiest days coincided with; Spain’s debut at Euro 08 against Russia, the win over Sweden with Torres netting the first of his country’s two goals, the penalty shoot-out win against Italy in the quarterfinals, the semis versus Russia, and of course, Spain’s 1-0 win over Germany in the final with the only goal of the game scored by the Liverpool and Spanish number ‘9’.

The night of June 29 and June 30 saw visits to the striker’s site double. At one point, the large amount of visitors to fernando9torres.com caused the webpage to collapse, though the small problem was soon solved. Of the two days, Monday June 30 was the busiest with 2.288.116 downloads, an astronomical figure, especially when compared to the 167.518 downloads (still an impressive sum) carried out June 3.

The Spanish and English versions were updated daily throughout the month, and both were in great demand from viewers. This influx of visitors though did not come as a surprise, as since the launch of Fernando9torres.com, the webpage has become the place to visit for all the latest news and views about, and by the forward.

The multimedia section has had to work overtime with photos and videos in great demand. The F9T Direct live on-line chat with Fernando Torres (from the Spanish national team headquarters in Austria) on June 6, was a total success, with more than 1000 questions received.

The month of June has also been a good month for ‘Youtube’. One of the videos on the website received almost 80,000 viewers… it was June 30 and Torres had just scored the final’s only goal to give Spain their first major international trophy in 44 years. The popularity of the forward’s strike, headed a long list of videos from Euro 08 which also included celebrations in the team’s changing room, and the player’s receiving the coveted trophy; a video watched 10,000 times.


Photo: J.A. Sirvent