At first glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary about The New Saints’ routine 5-1 win against Cefn Druids earlier this month.
A comfortable victory for the Cymru Premier champions-elect over the league’s basement dwellers will not have raised any eyebrows. But newly signed Cefn Druids defender Nacho Torres will always be able to reflect back on that particular game with fondness.
Torres had joined the club in the January transfer window, having released himself from crisis-stricken Bangor City. And unbeknown to him at the time, his Druids debut would make a small bit of Welsh football history, as he became the first Uruguayan to not only play, but to score in the Welsh top-flight.
Only in the days after the game, was the goal eventually credited to Torres, who got the final touch to steer a ricocheted shot from Druids teammate Taylor Thain over the line, but it initially appeared that it would not be awarded to him.
“The announcer announced the goal to 22 Torres. But I’m number 27, so they gave the goal to 22 Thain,” he said, before the league amended the original decision.
Becoming the first player from Uruguay to play and score in the Cymru Premier is the latest chapter in a well-travelled career that has taken the 26-year-old across three different continents.
“I never imagined that I would have an opportunity to play here,” he explained. “I had a call in August 2020 from Bangor City for a great project led by [manager and assistant] Hugo Colace and Riccardo Pellegrino, and several players came over in that same transfer window.”
Prior to completely withdrawing from the league, Bangor City’s Italian owner Domenico Serafino drafted in a number of Italian and South American players with Italian-dual nationality, creating the highly unusual sight of a multinational team of professional players competing in the modest surroundings of the Welsh second tier.
After leaving his native Uruguay for spells in Chile and the United States, Torres’ career in Europe started in the Italian lower leagues before having to readapt to Welsh football.
“When I first arrived, I found myself with a totally different football,” he said. “It was very physical, very vertical and very different from where I have played before,” he explained.
“It was a great challenge and then the season was suspended due to Covid.
“Then unfortunately, as everyone already knows, Bangor’s situation suffered the next season and the club was in free fall.”
After releasing himself from his contract, Torres was a long way from home and unsure where his future would lie, as the true reality of maintaining a career as a lower league player set in.
“Not being from here and having only played half the season, I was really worried that there would not be any interest in me, it was a very difficult moment,” he said.
“Fortunately, the reality however was different and I received several calls from Welsh teams, which made me very happy – not just as a footballer, but as a person too.
“After considering everything, I made the decision to sign for Cefn Druids. They’re in a very difficult situation and there’s a great challenge ahead until the end of the season, but I always play with 110 percent and have the desire and attitude to win. I’m very happy and grateful to the club and squad for the way in which they received me.”
Indeed, attempting to fend off relegation with a team yet to even register a single league victory two thirds of the way through the season represents an enormous task, but Torres isn’t shy of a challenge.
“I think that both here and in Uruguay, people like football with great passion and intensity, we have football in our blood. People are affectionate and also have healthy rivalry between teams.”
Torres has settled well to living in Wales and enjoys life in Bangor, where he resides, even managing to source a specialist shop that sells the customary Uruguayan yerba mate drink.
“I’m very comfortable here, the lifestyle here is very beautiful, and as a person I can live in peace and enjoy life. In Uruguay one lives with security problems and economic problems etc,” he said.
“I had a very nice childhood in Montevideo and from a very young age I started playing with a ball. There it is customary to get together with your friends to play football in the streets, make two goals with stones and play until the sun goes down!
“The truth is that I love the city and it is one of the things that you miss being away from home, your ‘place’.”
Torres says he plans to return to Montevideo at the end of the season to visit friends and family, but first he has other plans.
“In the medium term, it is about helping Cefn Druids to get as many points as possible between now and the end of the season and trying to meet the objectives, because that is why I came here, to meet the challenges. In the long term, I want to raise my performances and earn an opportunity in English football or a big team here in Wales.
“I’m happy to be the first Uruguayan to play in the Cymru Premier. It’s very important to be able to open the way for other players in the future.
“Maybe now, I don’t fully appreciate it – but it’s very nice to know that I was the first and to be able to tell my family and friends.”
Whatever the outcome of Cefn Druids’ season, Nacho Torres will have already made his own unique mark on the Welsh game. And a deflected late goal that was almost never given, under the floodlights at Park Hall, became a unique part of Welsh football history.
Featured image: Mike Plunkett
