Why Carlos Tevez Should Have Stayed at Juventus for Another Season
In Europe, we’re spoilt with most of the very best talents in the world game, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing when we lose one.
All footballers and all people, whether it involves moving continents, countries, cities or towns, have an urge to return home eventually, and that is why Carlos Tevez’s decision to reunite with his family and rejoin his old club Boca Juniors—whom he first played for at 16 years old—can only be viewed as nothing but a happy one. It’s just, well, he’ll be missed.
Tevez’s nine-year European career might end up being viewed as one of controversy, of off-field acts and deeds—not always his own—dictating his future, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that he has been one of the best forwards on the continent in the past decade when he’s allowed himself to be and certainly one of the most watchable.
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From pitching up alongside Javier Mascherano at West Ham United in 2006 and being thrown into an uncomfortable photograph with Alan Pardew, Tevez’s European career always seems to have been one that has gone against the grain. You’ve never quite known what would happen next.
After Mascherano quickly jumped ship to Liverpool, Tevez stayed and scored the goals that kept West Ham up, relegated Sheffield United and created a legal battle the likes of which the Premier League has never seen before or since, as detailed by the Independent's Jason Burt.
As that rumbled on, he joined Manchester United, making waves there for a couple of seasons before doing probably the most disruptive thing he could have done and forcing through a move to "noisy neighbours" Manchester City through his now infamous representative Kia Joorabchian.
On the other side of the Manchester divide, there were goals, inflammatory signs during victory parades and the failure to get off the substitutes’ bench in Munich when instructed to do so by then-manager Roberto Mancini, and so the Tevez story went on.
All of this we remember, of course, but it was when the forward moved to Juventus two summers ago that we started to see a new, slimmed-down Tevez 2.0.
He now looked simultaneously leaner and hungrier, and he scored 50 goals in his two seasons in Turin—winning two Serie A titles and reaching a Champions League final.
Perhaps it was a simple case of improving with age, but a more likely explanation is that Juve found a way to get the best out of the Argentinian by creating their team around him, thereby keeping Tevez motivated and dedicated to the cause.
His experiences in Manchester add weight to this theory.
Upon arriving at Old Trafford in the summer of 2007, Tevez quickly clicked with Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney to form an often devastating attacking trio that helped United to win both the Premier League and Champions League with what was arguably Sir Alex Ferguson’s last truly entertaining side.
Only the regular back four of Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Wes Brown started more league games for United that season than Tevez, whose 19 goals in all competitions was the second-highest at the club after the rapidly evolving Ronaldo’s extraordinary tally of 42.
But Ferguson—perhaps because of off-field reasons more than anything happening on the pitch— decided that things needed to change and sanctioned the £30 million signing of Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham Hotspur.
It was a move that often forced Tevez to the sidelines and resulted in fitness and form problems throughout a 2008/09 season in which his impact largely came from the bench. He became unhappy and wasn’t afraid to show it.
Perhaps with the notion of spiting Ferguson, the City move then allowed him to showcase his talents as one of the main men again. He scored 29 goals in his first season and 23 in his second, all the time earning the love of City’s fans and the scorn of United’s as he did so.
There were still the dramas, obviously—such as a transfer request halfway through his second season in December 2010, as reported by BBC Sport—but they were largely indulged because of his talent and importance to the cause. However, when City signed his compatriot Sergio Aguero in the summer of 2011, things began to go sour.
With the dislike for Ferguson becoming less relevant, and Aguero and January 2011 signing Edin Dzeko making his position at the club less vital, the form and fitness issues came back, culminating in the farcical night at the Allianz Arena in September 2011 when he refused to get off the substitutes’ bench to warm up.
Despite how it appeared that night, Tevez’s City career continued for a while longer, but the club would never see the best of him again—something that Juventus fans have been treated to since he moved to Turin in 2013.
And that is why it is a shame he is cutting his union with the club short this summer, especially after he helped drag the Old Lady kicking and screaming back to the grandest continental stage imaginable.
The Tevez of Juventus was a different player to the one of West Ham or either Manchester club, but there is a strong argument to say he was better.
Faster, stronger and fitter, he would produce wonderful moments of inspiration, such as a fine goal when running from the halfway line against Parma or the burst that earned him a penalty—which he converted—in the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid.
We’ll still see that at Boca, of course, but from a purely selfish viewpoint, it would have been nice to have seen the 31-year-old leading Juve’s assault on the Champions League again in 2015/16. There is a sense that he didn't show what he was capable of for much of his time in that competition.
His choice to return to South American football should be respected and applauded. Bar one half of Sheffield and a few bruised Manchester United fans, Europe will miss him, and no one here will forget him in a hurry.
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