Luca Toni, Italy
After top-scoring in the Bundesliga with FC Bayern München and hitting ten more to end up as the 2007/08 UEFA Cup’s most prolific striker along with Pavel Pogrebnyak of FC Zenit St. Petersburg, Azzurri fans will be expecting Toni’s goal spree to continue here. Toni must produce if the FIFA World Cup holders are to get out of a demanding Group C.

Jan Koller, Czech Republic
Baroš will hope to hold on to his award but his compatriot Koller could succeed him having been scoring at international level for over nine years. The big man’s record of 54 goals in 87 appearances for his country is phenomenal, as is his consistency: he scored six goals in UEFA EURO 2008™ qualifying – just as he did in 2000 and 2004.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal
Ronaldo may play on the wing for Portugal but he is still their greatest goal threat and comes into the tournament in the form of his life. The 23-year-old struck 42 goals this season, top-scoring in the UEFA Champions League and English Premier League for Manchester United FC and after finding the target in Moscow against Chelsea FC is desperate to make his mark on another big occasion.

Miroslav Klose, Germany
Germany have been tipped to go far at UEFA EURO 2008™ and that should give the FC Bayern München striker ample chance to add to the 39 goals he has already scored for his country at a rate of over one every two games. Klose is the only player in history to score five or more goals in successive FIFA World Cups, but is yet to score at a UEFA European Championship.

Thierry Henry, France
Fresh from playing his 100th game for Les Bleus, Henry will be keen to put a difficult first season with FC Barcelona behind him. His partnership with rising star Karim Benzema has set French pulses racing and though the youngster has been hogging the headlines of late, France’s record scorer shows no sign of giving up centre stage just yet.

Euzebiusz Smolarek, Poland
Smolarek’s nine goals in qualifying is more than any other player at these finals with David Healy’s Northern Ireland having missed out and Eduardo da Silva suffering injury. That has taken his overall international tally from four to 13, and it seems likely that the Real Racing Club Santander striker, who drew a blank at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, will be able to emulate his father Włodzimierz in scoring at a major finals.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, Netherlands
Having patched up his differences with coach Marco van Basten, Van Nistelrooy will be eager to make the most of this opportunity. Injury kept him out of the side for much of Real Madrid CF’s run-in but he is coming into form. He scored in four consecutive games for club and country up to his strike in the 1-1 draw with Denmark on 29 May, which took him up to 31 Netherlands goals - nine short of all-time leader Patrick Kluivert.

Fernando Torres, Spain
After Torres’s formidable first season with Liverpool FC, Spain fans have every reason to look ahead to UEFA EURO 2008™ with confidence. The question is, can their midfield provide the ammunition in such devastating style as Steven Gerrard does at Anfield?

Nihat Kahveci, Turkey
After more than one season of injury frustration, the Turkey forward struck 23 Villarreal CF goals in 2007/08 and also contributed vital strikes in qualifying for his nation. Good enough for Fatih Terim to leave out folk hero Hakan Şükür.

Zlatan Ibrahimović (Sweden)
“He’s probably one of the best forwards today,” says Sweden coach Lars Lagerbäck of Ibrahimović. The return of Henrik Larsson will ease some of the goalscoring burden on the 26-year-old FC Internazionale Milano striker who scored 17 times for FC Internazionale Milano last season.

Fernando José Torres Sanz (born 20 March 1984) is a Spanish football player currently playing for Liverpool. In the five seasons preceding his move to Liverpool from Atletico Madrid, Torres scored 75 goals in 176 La Liga appearances, with only Ronaldo, Samuel Eto’o and David Villa bettering that tally during the same period. Prior to that, Torres played two seasons in the Spanish second division. He has also been given the nickname El Niño(”the Kid”) due to his youthful complexion. In his first season with Liverpool, he scored 33 goals, including 24 in the Premier League, breaking Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of most league goals scored in the debut season (Van Nistelrooy scored 23).

Early career

From an early age, Torres developed a bond with Atlético Madrid. His grandfather wasn’t passionate about football in general but prided himself in being an Atlético supporter, and the younger Torres soon inherited his love for the club.

When he was 7, the young Torres started playing regularly in an indoor league for his neighbourhood club, Mario’s Holland, as a forward. Three years later, aged 10, he progressed to playing for an 11-side team, Rayo 13. After an impressive season with his new club, in which he scored 55 goals, Torres was one of three Rayo 13 players who earned a trial with Atlético Madrid. He impressed the scouts and, aged just 11, joined the club in 1995.

Club career

Atlético Madrid

1995-2000: Atlético youth team

After progressing through the ranks for a few seasons, Torres won his first important youth title in 1998. Atlético sent an under-15 team to compete in Nike Cup Europe, against youth teams from prominent European clubs including Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Fenerbahçe. Atlético won the tournament. He was later voted the best player in Europe for that age-group.

In 1999, aged 15, Torres fulfilled his childhood dreams and signed his first contract with Atlético Madrid. He spent his first year playing in the promising Atlético under 19 team, but it was in the following season that he really made his mark,in 2000 he was voted the cool guy or Best player ever to come from Madrid.

2000-01: Debut season

The 2000–01 season had started badly, as Torres suffered from a broken leg that kept him out of action until December, but that proved to be only a temporary setback. In February 2001, he was part of the Spanish under-16s team that won the Algarve Tournament, in May he was part of the same team that won the 2001 UEFA European Under-16 Football Championship and by the end of the season he was playing for Atlético’s senior team. Torres’s first team debut on May 27, 2001, at El Calderón, against Leganés. A week later, he scored his first goal for the club, in a game against Albacete. His nickname is ‘El Niño’, which translates to The Kid.

2001-02: Promotion to La Liga

2001–02 saw Atlético win promotion back to La Liga.The then-17-year-old Torres didn’t have the best of seasons in front of goal, though, netting only six times in 36 appearances in the Segunda Division. In November, Torres represented Spain at the 2001 FIFA Under-17 World Championship. He scored one goal in three games, but the team didn’t progress past the group stage. Later that season, in July, Torres won the 2002 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship. Again he scored the only goal in the final and ended as the tournament’s leading goalscorer (4 goals in 4 games) and best player.

2002-03: La Liga debut

2002 saw Atlético Madrid returning to La Liga, the first division of Spanish football. In his first season playing in the top flight, Torres did not find the transition from second-tier football too much of a hindrance, and he scored 13 goals in 29 appearances as Atlético finished 12th. He also made his debut for the Spanish under-20 team.

2003-04: Atlético captain

In 2003-04 season Torres made further strides, and he scored 19 league goals in just 35 appearances. Aged just 19, he was also named Atlético’s club captain. Atlético also improved, to 7th, but narrowly missed out on an automatic UEFA Cup place on the final day of the season by virtue of an inferior goal difference in their head-to-head record against Sevilla (2-1, 0-2). However, Atlético’s 7th place finish in 2004 did allow them to compete in the Intertoto Cup, giving Torres his first taste of European club competition. They made the final, but lost on penalties, this time to Villarreal. Fernando Torres was the youngest player ever to captain Atlético Madrid before transferring to Liverpool FC.

2005-07: Transfer speculation

After the 2006 World Cup, in which Torres participated as a member of the Spanish national team, the striker admitted that he had turned down the chance to join Chelsea at the end of the 2005-06 season. Following the 2006-07 season, Torres’s future at Madrid was once again the subject of speculation after Atlético’s inability to secure an automatic UEFA Cup spot. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United were all linked with a move for the player, with reports in the English media stating that Torres was the main transfer target of Liverpool.
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Torres, although a world class talent with Athletico Madrid, never proved prolific in front of goal with a scoring average of only 15 goals per season.

That was until Rafa Benitez took him to Liverpool, where has become arguably the best striker in the world.

Pace, power, skill, and absolutely fearless, every defence should worry about this man. He can score goals from anywhere, and can leave you standing in awe at the same time.

His partnership with David Villa for Spain is one of the most lethal in the world, and service to the strikers will no doubt be top notch due to the presence of Fabregas and Xavi in midfield amongst others.

With 32 goals in 40 appearances for Liverpool and 15 in 46 for the national side, even Italy’s defensive rock Cannavaro should be afraid of “El Nino”.