Manchester City: Could Carlos Tevez Possibly Be in the Right?

Allow me to propose a hypothetical:

The ABC Co. is planning to launch a new line of widgets that will revolutionize the widget community. You have been asked to help sell this new line to the public. Your many successful years of sales under smaller enterprises has helped you work your way up the corporate ladder and now you are the guy they have chosen to get this product off the ground.

Of course you accept the position. The money, the new office and the chance to make a name for yourself are too much to turn down.

You come into the company and immediately have an impact. Your techniques in sales and ideas have helped the new widget corner the market and made your boss a very rich man. The company has grown in fame and stock holders. You have done everything you have been asked to do and more.

So now that this widget is firmly established in the market, you wonder when your promotion will be coming. When you will get that call to become head of sales or perhaps even sit on the board at the company.

One day you are called into the office, expecting that there will be an attractive secretary pouring glasses of champagne for you and your superiors to celebrate your promotion. Instead you walk in to find some familiar faces sitting around a conference table, as well as a new one. A young bright-eyed boy who’s ink on his MBA has not even dried yet.

Your bosses tell you that this is your new partner, that he will be splitting your work with you and has just as much say in the workings of the company as you.

Within weeks you see that this new guy is not your equal, but more your replacement. That your services as a hardworking salesman—almost Willy Loman, if I may be so blunt—attitude has gotten you as far as you can. You have made the company what it is today, but through no fault of your own your bosses know, and by this point you do as well, you can’t grow it any further.

How would you feel about this scenario? Well, you would probably feel kind of like Carlos Tevez does right now.

I have never been one to commend players for taking a stance against the betterment of the team as he did a few weeks ago. My personal belief is that there is little room for socialist philosophy in sports. Heck, a club should be treated as a dictatorship: Players play, coaches coach and owners foot the bill.

But there is something that is off about the Tevez situation. Something in my mind keeps pushing me to contend that perhaps Tevez isn’t the bad guy he is being made out to be.

Let’s begin by taking a short look at the club’s recent history:                                                  

Manchester City has never been a club of greatness. They have always played second fiddle to the Red Devils especially in recent years. Everything was smaller Eastlands, the stadium, the budget, the players, the trophy cabinet…everything.

But in the summer of 2008 it all changed. An Arab billionaire, who we will call the Sheik, bought the team in a way that only an Arab billionaire could. And for the first time in the club’s 100-plus year history, the fans could look at their rivals to the southwest and say ‘just you wait.’

In the Sheik’s first days of ownership the club broke the British transfer record by signing Robinho from Real Madrid for £32.5 million. The Brazilian would score lead the team with 15 goals in all competitions, but they would finish a disappointing 10th in the league.

The following summer, The Sheik would continue to pillage the footballing world like his Mesopotamian ancestors did to tribal communities all across the Arabian peninsula a couple millennia ago. Some of the biggest names in English football like Gareth Barry, Emanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure made the club that was still refered to as “other one,” but one singing that summer help rid them of that name.

Tevez had had a very successful tenure at Old Trafford. He helped lead the Red Devils to two Premier League titles and a Champions League in his two seasons. He played well enough for the club to offer him a five-year contract that would have made him one of the highest paid players on the team.

Instead, he opted out and made a move to Eastlands. Finally the Sheik had made his move. Not only did he get a world class talent, but he took him from right under the nose of the team they are trying to get out from under the shadow of.

In his first season at the new club, he led the team in goals scoring 29 in all competitions and guided them to a fifth-place finish, their best since 1977.

The following season, he again led the team in goals with 23 and won the golden boot (20 in league), moved them up to a third-place finish level on points with Chelsea and guided them to an FA Cup title, the club's first trophy in over 30 years. But perhaps most importantly, the team earned two positive results against United, including a win over them in the FA Cup semifinals.

In the club’s history, never had they entered a season with as much optimism as in the fall of 2011, but then seemingly out of nowhere, the ground began to fall out from under the magical relationship between City and Tevez.

Tevez announced his love for the club, but also that if family problems back in Buenos Aires could not be solved, he would ask for a transfer away from Manchester. However, by the time the season kicked off, his commitment with the club had been reaffirmed when he told BBC, "I'm happy at City and I'm not moving from there."

But his commitment with the club was not returned by the club's commitment to him. Suddenly he found himself on the out of a spending spree that looked more like a Kardashian on Rodeo Drive than a football club. The very hottest young talent across Europe were poached from their clubs and brought to the Eastlands in an unprecedented way, including fellow countryman Sergio Aguero.

Tevez had started in one game and appeared in three others so far this season. He is without a goal and become an afterthought on the boys in sky blue that have been on a tear through the early part of the Premier League schedule. Then, of course, it all unraveled on one night in Munich.

Tevez’s refusal to play against the Germans has been well documented on this site and others. There is no need to go into specifics about who said what, or how he reacted to whatever. What is known is that Tevez did not play on that night, the reason why is the mystery.

By the club’s reaction to the situation, it may be safe to assume that he really did refuse to play. He may have told Mancini flat out no. Since then they have banned him from the training grounds, put him on gardening leave and hold his resignation until 2014 if another club is not found to take him off their hands. It has become quite clear that he will never play for City again.

This has all brought widespread condemnation down upon him from fans, coaches, the media and myself. But looking back on the situation with a more extroverted eye, barring my opinion about the expectations of a player, was what he did perhaps justifiable?

Tevez did not single-handedly make City relevant, but he surely had a huge part in it. He did what the Sheik asked, erasing the failure of Robinho and providing the fans with a truly great, hardworking and exciting player that will make their club competitive on all levels. He moved them from that echelon of pretenders to contenders.

Now in 2011, they have finally amassed a team that can compete with the big boys. No longer are they someone who can derail you on your way to a title, they can straight up take it from you. Why should Tevez not be allowed to be a part of that glory? Why should all of his hard work, making this dreary northern factory town into the chosen destination of some of the best talent in the game today, not be rewarded with silverware of his own?

I wonder if Tevez ever read Muerte De un Viajante?

Roberto Mancini is not the most likable of fellows. He is stern and rigorous. The way in which he handled Mario Balotelli’s preseason antics was something you would expect out of a JV high school coach trying to discipline his star player. This kind of demeanor is sometimes necessary when dealing with egos the size players today. But when he publicly called out Tevez he made a fatal mistake.

I was watching a match the other day on Fox Soccer and after the game they showed some clips of coaches who had been asked about what they thought about the situation. Wolves manager Mike McCarthy seemed unperturbed as he simply suggested that it is a common occurrence, but always behind closed doors. By addressing the situation publicly, he had the opportunity to create the plot line himself.

The bitter and malignant Tevez refused to play while the courageous leader Mancini stood up to him for the betterment of the team. The lines had already been drawn and the plot laid out, well before Tevez could get his two sense in.

What if Tevez were able to tell his side of the story first? Would it at all change how we felt about his choice? How would Mancini react on the defensive as opposed to being able to sketch out the attack without his opponent knowing it? Would things be different if Tevez was facing him when he plunged that knife forward?

To be honest, even after writing this I am not sure where I stand on the issue. But I do know there are two sides to every story and perhaps Tevez may not be as guilty as it may look. Just ask yourself how would you feel if it were you?