South American football expert Tim Vickery explains why former Manchester City and Manchester United star Tevez is so loved in his home city as he starts his third spell with Boca Juniors
BACK where he started, Carlos Tevez is about to begin his third spell with Buenos Aires giants Boca Juniors.
And to celebrate, he went back for a kickabout at the place where his story really began – a neighbourhood of the city so deprived and violent that it colloquially goes by the name of Fort Apache.
“I needed to see where I came from,” said Tevez.
“I wanted to find inside myself the feeling of hunger, the sensation that I was going without something.”
It comes across as a penance for his year in China – a very lucrative but massively disappointing time with Shanghai Shenhua, where he took with him an entourage of 50, including his golf coach.
The move probably would have worked out better if the Chinese had bought the whole of Buenos Aires and carried it, brick by brick, across to the Far East.
On all of his wanderings – Corinthians in Brazil, West Ham, both Manchester clubs and Juventus – Tevez never appeared entirely happy away from home.
He won plenty of silverware – two Premier league titles with United, one with City and a couple of Serie A titles with Juventus.
But it was only in his last season in Europe, 2014/5, that he was undoubtedly the top dog in a big team.
And, point proved, he could not wait to run back to Boca for his second spell.
The love is reciprocated.
Much of it comes from those humble, difficult origins, where the scars he picked up as a kid from an overturning pot of boiling water are worn proudly as a badge of identity.
The stocky build and rags to stardom biography are so reminiscent of the man himself, Diego Maradona.
When Argentina play at home Tevez has been announced as ‘the player of the people,’ earning a louder cheer than Lionel Messi.
Back home, Tevez is indulged as if he sat at Maradona’s right hand.
The two have a mutual admiration society.
As coach of the national team, Maradona managed to steer Argentina through a traumatic qualification campaign, during which Tevez lost his place, to make it to South Africa 2010.
Come the World Cup, though, Maradona could not restrain himself.
He had to find a place for Tevez, and ended up unbalancing what had been a defensive side.
They sunk 4-0 to the Germans in the quarter finals, a game in which, absurdly, Messi was doing the fetching and carrying for Tevez.
The sacking of Maradona did not bring an end to the international career of Tevez.
But his subsequent appearances have been few and disappointing.
And his record of 13 goals in 76 games does not even count as mediocre.
Even so, Tevez is talking loud as, approaching 34, he prepares for his third and presumably his last spell with Boca.
The league title is in his sights – as is the Copa Libertadores, South America’s Champions League, where he first established himself as a genuine star in Boca’s 2003 triumph.
But he also has his eye on another World Cup – to play in another one at his age would, he said, be “a beautiful consecration” – a religious term from someone loved with devotion by the fans of Boca Juniors.
