Fernando Torres remains optimistic that he will be fit for the World Cup and has been reassured of his place in Spain's squad by the national team's sporting director, Fernando Hierro.
Torres travelled to Barcelona by road after flights out of the UK were cancelled and arrived in the Catalan capital on Sunday evening. He was seen by the specialist Dr Ramón Cugat, who operated to clean the meniscus, and the results of a subsequent arthroscopy are expected later today, with the player optimistic that he will be ready to return to full training sooner than the initial six-week time-span announced on Liverpool's website.
"We have to be positive and think about the fact that there's still a World Cup to look forward to," Torres said this morning. "This has been a hard year with injuries and it's a pity not to have played more and scored more goals.
"There were three possibilities. One, for the meniscus to be in good condition and to follow a conservative course of treatment. Two, for it not to be clear and, three, for it to be affected. The scan we did in Liverpool on Thursday cleared up any doubts and showed that I would almost certainly have to be operated upon. It's the ligament not the cartilage."
Torres continued: "When we saw that on Friday we knew we had to act quickly. On Saturday my flight was cancelled and so we had to arrange a trip in quick time, in barely half an hour. It was a real hassle but the only way of getting to Barcelona was to do what we did.
"We were lucky enough to get a ticket for the Eurotunnel, which wasn't easy. The journey was quite an adventure. We stopped to sleep on the outskirts of Paris, which made things a bit easier. I was shattered when I arrived in Barcelona at 8.20 on Sunday evening; I barely had time to go to the hotel and shower before going to the clinic to see Dr Cugat. Three hours later, the meniscus had been operated on."
Torres explained how he had played on with the injury after damaging his knee in the Europa League tie with Benfica a fortnight ago.
"The injury happened in the second minute of the game against Benfica at Anfield," he said. "I played for 85 minutes injured. If I had been thinking only about the World Cup I would have asked to be taken off. I didn't. I wanted to reach the Europa League final with my team.
"Right now, the World Cup is the most important thing. You wait four years for it and, if things go well, I don't expect to miss it. My work starts right away today."