PREMIER League bosses reckon Fernando Torres is the most likely player to bring the Golden Boot back to England.
The Liverpool striker came in ahead of Wayne Rooney in the survey league sponsors Barclays conducted with top flight managers ahead of the Wold Cup, which starts tomorrow.
Torres missed the last seven games of Liverpool’s season with a knee injury and only made his return to action on Tuesday night in Spain’s final warm-up friendly before jetting off to South Africa
But Torres made an immediate return to scoring form after coming on as a second half substitute against Poland, scoring the fifth in a 6-0 rout.
He secured 47% of the vote, ahead of Rooney (41%) and Manchester City and Argentina striker Carlos Tevez (12%).
The Premier League bosses have hailed Rooney as pivotal to England’s hopes of lifting the FIFA World Cup for the first time since 1966 but they believe Argentina talisman Lionel Messi will be the star of the tournament whilst most are tipping Brazil to claim their sixth world crown.
But 59%believe Rooney will also be amongst the top three stand-out players in this year’s tournament, with 82% of the managers citing Messi as the player set to make the biggest impact in South Africa.
Brazil are backed by 53% of the managers to claim a sixth World Cup ahead of European Champions Spain (24%), with 12% seeing Argentina as potential dark horses.
