Argentine soccer player Carlos Tévez, during a visit to London in April. JUSTIN TALLIS (AFP)
"I have nothing more to give," said Carlos Tevez in June of last year and lowered the blind.
The Argentine idol, intercontinental champion with Boca Juniors, captain of the English Manchester City and scorer of the Italian Juventus, said goodbye to football at the age of 37 and secluded himself in his private life.
The last time his name was in the media was in December of last year, when an Argentine court forced him to pay special contributions for refusing to comply with the tax on large fortunes.
The Apache
, as they always told him in memory of the rough neighborhood where he grew up, has again raised controversy this week, now for his return to football.
From this Tuesday he will be the technical director of Rosario Central, an appointment in which his political sympathies, his business ties and an alleged lack of technical preparation have raised criticism in the most passionate sport in the country.
The last soccer schism experienced by the city of Rosario, the third largest in Argentina, was caused by another Boca idol.
In 1993, Diego Armando Maradona played seven games at Newell's, before facing his retirement, and put one of the most furious fans in national football on the global map.
If it is clear that Boca Juniors against River Plate is the quintessential classic of Argentine football, the rivalry between Newell's and Central is the oldest... and the most violent.
Tevez has returned Rosario's eyes, but his situation is the opposite: Central lost again last night in the local tournament and, with the ghost of relegation lurking after two years with the change of category frozen in national football, the team needs of a miracle to put out their fires.
Boca was the executioner of Central in the last two times that he caressed a championship.
In 2018 he won on penalties, but the 2015 final still generates the fury of the
Rosario
scoundrels .
Boca sang champion against Central with a goal offside and a penalty charged outside the area.
The arbitration fiasco was so evident that even the
Xeneize
captain was honest on national television.
"There was a lot of celebration.
But, cold, one does not like to win a championship like that, ”said Tevez then, who had just dropped out of European football at the best moment of his career to return to the team that idolized him.
The sporting grudge is not the only wall that will have to break down to win over the fans of Central.
The idol of Boca, who won an Intercontinental against Carlo Ancelotti's Milan and got into the pocket of the fans at just 19 years old, is also tied to a name that raises blisters in half the national consciousness: Mauricio Macri.
The former Argentine president, a great friend of Tevez, catapulted his political career with the success of Boca at the beginning of the century, and
El Apache
, the humble boy who made himself and won everything, was his trademark.
The macrismo, which Tevez never hides, not only divides the rogue
fans
who identify their team with the popular neighborhood and lean politically to the left with those who do not.
He also worries those who see the influence of the former president as a different way of managing the club.
Part of the entourage that leads the Rosario team had agreed that Pablo
Vitamina
Sánchez, a history of the team, takes charge of the technical direction.
In the middle of the negotiations, a businessman offered on behalf of Tevez and the other leadership wing of Central accepted in a matter of days.
The possibility came from the representative Christian Bragarnik, who according to the specialized media is "owner of half Argentine football."
Bragarnik offered Tevez to the team and they signed a contract five days later.
The landing of him, as a member of one of the largest portfolios of coaches and players in local football, angers some political voices in the club.
"It means the disappearance of Central as a club, its transformation into a business platform and the advance of money laundering," denounced the current deputy and former candidate for vice president of Central, Carlos Del Frade.
Tevez, according to complaints within the coaches' union, has also not complied with the regulatory courses to be a technical director, so his signature will depend on another registered coach: the current Secretary of Sports of the Macrista Government of Buenos Aires, Carlos
Chapa
Retegui, laureate field hockey coach and great friend of Tevez.
Retegui, who has no football experience, still has to resign from his political position to accompany his friend, but his presence this Monday night with Tevez in the defeat of Central leaves no doubt that he will accompany him on the adventure.
A generation of thirty-somethings who grew up watching the Boca Juniors win the most in their history now sees another of their idols trying to succeed from the bench.
Tevez joins a list with names like Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Martín Palermo or Fernando Gago, who sat on the bench after triumphing on the pitch.
None, so far, had great results.
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