5 Questions Atletico Madrid Fans Would Love to Ask Fernando Torres

To appreciate just how adored Fernando Torres is at Atletico Madrid, one only needed to see the 45,000 fans that packed into the Vicente Calderon to witness his official unveiling upon his return to his boyhood club on January 4. 

Nicknamed "El Nino" ("The Kid"), Torres is perhaps the club's favourite son, having risen through the academy setup at Atletico and becoming the youngest player to play for Los Colchoneros when he made his senior debut aged just 17 in 2001. 

Two years later, Torres was the club's captain and became Atleti's most exciting player during his initial six-year stint at the Vicente Calderon. Such excellence took him to Liverpool in 2007, where he took the Premier League by storm and blossomed into one of the finest strikers in the world.

But disastrous spells at Chelsea and AC Milan followed for the Spaniard, leading to a emotional return on loan to Atletico on a hunch from manager Diego Simeone, who is clearly of the belief he can help Torres revive his career. 

Now that he's returned home, Atleti fans would no doubt love to ask Torres an array of questions. 

Across the following slides, we look at five of those.

What Separates the Atletico He Left and the Atletico to Which He Returns?

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When Fernando Torres made his debut for Atletico Madrid in 2001, the club were playing in the second tier of Spanish football, the Segunda Division. 

Indeed, it wasn't until the 2002-03 season that Torres made his La Liga debut. During his first stint at the Vicente Calderon, the club never finished higher than seventh in the Primera Division. 

Though Torres was a symbol of excellence and home-grown purity at the club, his emergence came during one of the most barren and difficult periods in Atleti's history. 

Obviously, that's in stark contrast to where Atletico are now. 

Since the arrival of Diego Simeone, Atleti have captured five trophies in three years—one of them La Liga—and now stand as a genuine rival to the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain. 

As such, it would fascinating to hear from Torres about what he believes separates the Atletico he left and the Atletico to which he has returned. What does the club do differently? What's the behind-the-scenes attitude now? What differences are there in training? How is the club nurturing talent? What has Simeone embedded into this club that wasn't in existence a decade ago?

We can see the results, but Torres would be able to give an almost unrivalled insight into how the inner workings of Atletico have changed. 

What's It Like Playing for a Manager He Once Captained?

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During Fernando Torres' first stint at Atletico Madrid, he and Diego Simeone were team-mates between 2003 and 2005 under the management of Gregorio Manzano and Cesar Ferrando. 

And interestingly, Torres, the club's precocious leader at the time, was Simeone's captain. It would have been an interesting dynamic, given that Torres is 14 years younger than Simeone.

But El Nino has now returned to a club where his former team-mate is not only the manager but also the club's most prominent figure and the living embodiment of everything the team now stands for. 

In short, Simeone is now Atletico's star attraction. 

It would be intriguing, therefore, to listen to Torres discuss the dynamic between the pair now and what their player-manager relationship is like, given that their rank was once the other way around. 

How Do Jose Mourinho and Diego Simeone Compare?

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By returning to an Atletico Madrid outfit under the management of Diego Simeone, Fernando Torres is one of the few players in a position to remark on the similarities and differences between Simeone and Jose Mourinho—two of the game's pre-eminent managers. 

Indeed, Torres spent the 2013-14 season under the Portuguese at Chelsea before being sent to AC Milan on loan and could provide some fascinating insights into how the two managers compare. 

Of course, there are obviously similarities between the Atletico and Chelsea bosses: Both are fiery customers on the sideline, both have shown a brilliant tactical acumen, both have accumulated honours in a hurry and both have forged close bonds with many of the players to have played for them. 

But there are differences too, most notably in the pair's contrasting manner when behind the microphone—Simeone tends to be respectful; Mourinho is often confrontational.

Yet, behind the scenes, there would undoubtedly be other differences between the leading managers in the way they prepare, the way they interact with players, their training methods and how they convey their footballing philosophies. 

With the two men sitting right at the top of the managerial pile, the comparison from Torres would be extremely interesting. 

How Does He See the Decline of His Game Post-Liverpool?

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One of the things that will stick with Fernando Torres is that he's likely to be remembered for being one of the most expensive mistakes ever made by a Premier League club. 

Though he was a barnstorming success with Liverpool, the Spaniard's move to Chelsea for a whopping £50 million in 2011 made him, at the time, the fourth-most expensive footballer in history and the most expensive player in British history. 

But he never once recaptured the brilliance of his stints at Liverpool and Atletico Madrid, becoming something of a punchline for jokes as he racked up disastrous misses in front of goal and long strings of scoreless matches. 

Of course, the rest of the world has its views on why Torres endured such a steep decline after leaving Liverpool, but it would be compelling to hear the striker open up on the tumultuous period in his career and discuss in detail the multitude of factors that led to his rather spectacular fall from grace. 

Does He Intend to Retire at Atletico If He Can?

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As recently as October, Fernando Torres insisted that he would only return to Atletico Madrid if he believed he could compete and help the team. As far as he was concerned, the club was never going to be a cushy footballing retirement home. 

"I've said it many times, I won't go to Atletico to retire," the striker said late last year, according to Kieran Gill of the Daily Mail. 

"I will go if I have motivation to compete because the Atletico of today is very different than when I was there," he added.

But now that the dream of returning to his boyhood club has been made a reality, does he—if afforded the chance to do so—intend to retire at the very place it all started?