Torres keen to end barren spell

David Villa became the tournament’s leading scorer with his fifth goal as the European champions downed Paraguay 1-0 to set up an enticing semifinal with Germany in Durban on Wednesday.

“I hope I’ll score at this World Cup, I’m sure I will,” Torres said.

It has been hard going for Torres in South Africa, but he still maintains the confidence of Del Bosque despite his lean spell.

“Physically he’s fine, I should say that we took him off because the team wasn’t clicking but we’re very happy with Fernando’s work, how he’s doing and we hope he will do better in the next games,” Del Bosque said.

“We hope to raise the quality of our game, we hope our match with Germany and the other semifinal will be good adverts for football. We hope we’ll play better and we can celebrate going to the final,” he said.

Torres is looking forward to pitting his wits and skill against Germany and breaking his tournament duck. “Everyone says the Germans don’t have the best defence, but I disagree and they’ve also shown they have good forwards,” Torres said.

“They have good players like Klose, Podolski, who’s playing well, but it’s not about names. It’s 50-50, it will be very close. They miss Michael Ballack but they’ve always been this good and Mesut Ozil’s replaced him.”