Can Fernando Torres clinch amazing treble of Liga title, Champions League glory and Spain recall?

There is no place for sentiment in modern football, except maybe at Atletico Madrid – a club built on sentiment.

This the club where there is even emotion in the street names leading up to the ground – ‘Melancholics Walk’ for heaven’s sake; well-trodden during over half a century of occasional glory but, more often than not, pained failure.

Then there is Diego Simeone the captain who came back as a coach and made the club great again as it was when he won the double pulling the strings in midfield.

Then there is famous Spanish singer Joaquin Sabina, one of the club’s biggest fans. Calling him just crooner is to do his poetic lyrics an injustice. Whining about having an Atleti season ticket and a face like the bottom of a whisky glass in one of his songs.

And then there is Fernando Torres. El Niño.

When he came back to the club in January 2015, it all seemed very sentimental. He had failed to live up to an always-unrealistic £50million price tag at Chelsea and not settled in Milan.

He was greeted by a full stadium. Fans who had turned up just to watch him walk out on to the pitch, with his two young children Leo and Nora, wearing the Atletico Madrid shirt once more.

He was the wrong side of 30 and had long since lost his sheen. He was not the Torres of Liverpool and the winning goal in Spain’s Euro 2008 win but he was theirs and he had come home.

Now with a month left of his first full season back he stands on the brink of an amazing treble – he could still win the league, the Champions League and a Spain call-up. The last of those three prizes is the one that least bothers him, it’s winning something with the club he supported as a boy that really counts at this stage in his career.

There is still an old You Tube video in circulation of a 12-year-old Torres jumping up and down at the Vicente Calderon as a young fan to the tune of the terrace favourite Olé olé olé Cholo Simeone. He idolized the Argentine, then bizarrely became his captain when he was given the armband aged just 19 and Simeone was at the end of his second spell at the club. Now he is Simeone's centre-forward scoring the goals that keep the hopes of trophy at the Calderon this season alive.

Torres knows what it would mean to Atletico Madrid supporters if they could win the league for the second time in three years. And he knows it would mean even more if they could get back into the European Cup final and this time not blow it in injury time as they did in 1974 against Bayern Munich and in 2014 against Real Madrid.

He knows because he is a fan too and that is why he cried in the dressing room after the first leg against Barcelona when he believed his sending off had possibly cost Atletico Madrid their place in the last four.

He tweeted supporters immediately after the game apologizing to them and urging them to fill the stadium for the second leg – which of course they did willing the home side to a 2-0 win that saw them go through.

Now he finds himself in the semi-final against Bayern Munich where he will come up against Philipp Lahm. Take a look at Torres goal from that 2008 final against Germany when Spain end their international trophy drought and it is Lahm who Torres leaves on the ground as he scores from Xavi’s pass. Could he really make it to the Euros again this summer?

Vicente Del Bosque is not spoilt for choice up-front but seems happy enough with Alvaro Morata, Paco Alcacer, Aritz Aduriz and Diego Costa currently the first four on the grid. But if any of those were to pick up an injury the clamour to call-up Torres would reach fever pitch, at least from Atletico Madrid supporters, who by then hope to be celebrating another league title. They won their toughest remaining game this week 1-0 to Athletic Bilbao thanks to a goal from you know who. They are expected to win their last four games – one slip from Barça and they, and Torres, will be champions.