Why is Carlos Tevez not playing for Argentina?

Juventus’ Argentine forward Carlos Tevez

The absence of striker Carlos Tevez in the Argentina national team is one of the most interesting case studies of world football at the moment. The Juventus player, a team who is on top of the Serie A table, has been the leading figure of the league with 15 goals and 6 assists. But he is not in coach Alejandro Sabella’s plans, who has been managing Argentina since 2011, when ‘Carlitos’ played his last game for the national team before Sabella became the Argentina coach.

A successful career

Carlos Tevez emerged from slum of Fuerte Apache and soon caught the attention of scouts from Boca Juniors, Argentina’s most popular club. Being a very fast player, aggressive on the ball with devastating acceleration and an obsession to score goals, Carlitos in a short time period ingratiated the exigent public. He helped the Xeneizes team win all the trophies that they competed in – the Argentine championship, Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup.

At only 21 years old, he moved to Corinthians from Brazil, where he broke the paradigm. He became the most famous and beloved player of the rival nation, where he was champion and top scorer of the Brazilian league 2005. In England, he suffered to adapt to the country, but at Manchester United he helped form one of the most feared attacks in the history of the Premier League alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, helping the team win all possible titles that the club competed for between 2007 and 2009. After that, during a transfer controversy, he agreed to play for rivals Manchester City, where he lived through ups and downs, but was crowned champion in 2011/12 and the top scorer in the Premier League 2010/11.

In another adventure of his glorious career, Tevez quickly achieved success in Italian football. He is the current top scorer of the Serie A and if he tops the scoring charts by the end of the season, he will join players like Romario and Ruud van Nistelrooy as the only players to achieve that feat in three different top level leagues.

Top scorer players in three national top level leagues

- Márcio Amoroso, Brazil: Brazilian league 1994, Italian league 1998/99 and German league 2001/02.
- Romario, Brazil: Dutch league in 1988/89, 1989/90 and 1990/91, La Liga in 1993/94 and Brazilian league in 2001 and 2005.
- Van Nistelrooy, Dutch: Dutch league 1998/99 and 1999/2000, English Premier League in 2002/03 and Spanish League 2006/07.

Why has Tevez been left out?

Tevez has revealed that Sabella wants only low-profile players in the squad and that his style does not fit the philosophy of the coach. According to the Argentine press, the problem could be tactical one. People connected with Sabella say that the current coaching staff think that the presence of Tevez on the pitch would take space of the stars like Sergio Aguero and especially Lionel Messi. The idea that Tevez plays in a part of the field that disrupts the game style of Messi is much debated in Argentina.

The temperament of the footballer is also an obstacle to his inclusion in the team. Tevez would not accept a bench role. Throughout his career, it has been common to identify his dissatisfaction with a secondary role which came to the forefront when he was substituted during matches. Such a situation would be bad enough for the squad if it happens in the World Cup. Perhaps this fact also contributed to the marginalization of Juventus’ number 10 in the Argentina national team.

The truth is that Tevez has been through heaven and hell in his career with the Argentine team. When Diego Maradona was the coach between 2008 and 2010, he said:“My team is Tevez and ten more players, you can’t leave out the player of the Argentine people,” referring to the absolute dedication and fighting spirit of the striker on the pitch, a characteristic which the Argentine people identified with.

Sabella seems to ignore the popular clamour for Tevez and remains irreducible about it.