Atletico Madrid striker Fernando Torres has said it will be a dream to play for his boyhood club in a home Champions League tie if he features against Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday.
Torres came through the ranks at Atletico, captaining the team as a teenager and scoring 91 goals in 244 games before leaving for Liverpool in 2007.
At that time, Atletico were struggling on the pitch, meaning the striker known as "El Nino" did not get to play European football at the Estadio Vicente Calderon.
And the 30-year-old told El Pais he was looking forward to putting that right against the Bundesliga team, who hold a 1-0 lead from the first leg.
"I still have many dreams to fulfill, which keeps me ambitious," Torres said. "I would love to go to games like tonight's as a fan, with the stadium spectacular.
"It is an opportunity to go through and show ourselves that we can do it. You cannot play badly in these games, as you are so motivated."
Torres said Roger Schmidt's Leverkusen side had surprised Atletico in the first leg, explaining: "They had a very high rhythm and were better than us in this, which is something unusual for this team.
"Now we know how they are. We must make them realise they are playing at our home."
Asked to explain why his form had dipped in recent seasons since a move to Chelsea that brought only 20 goals in 110 Premier League appearances, Torres said he had often felt it had been like "swimming in wet clothes" at Stamford Bridge.
"The doubts were understandable because people do not see the English league, or the short time I was at Milan -- they read the statistics, and they were not the same as always," he said.
"You end up in a situation where things have not gone well for weeks, or for years. That is like swimming in wet clothes. I know how I am, and I am good. In the end these doubts disappear, but then others come again."
Returning to Atletico in January in a loan deal involving both Chelsea and Milan had been a perfect to relaunch his career, he explained.
"I knew there would be no problems here," he said. "I always said I would return if I was motivated and ambitious.
"The commitment, of course, will be 100 percent -- that is what they ask of you here. In the end I am coming to learn from this champion team because I have not known that at Atletico from inside, although I followed it from afar as a fan."