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Things haven’t setteled down since Tuesday, since Carlos Tevez allegedly refused his manager, Roberto Mancini, and skipped over the part of warming up and entering the Bayern Munich – Manchester City Champions League match, a 2-0 loss.
Immediatly after the match Mancini said that Tevez won’t play for City again. The owners and board seem to be behind him, slapping a two week fine on the Argentinian, who makes around £250,000 a week. Nothing that will hurt him too much. For now, he is suspended from the club, pending a full investigation, aka questioning him, players and coaches about the event. Still, Mancini might be dreaming at nights about Tevez getting sacked from the club, but that won’t happen.
Why? Well, despite the plunge his stocks are taking since the summer – Saying he doesn’t want to play for the club, a terrible Copa America, with a head coach he didn’t want to play for either, a bad 2011-2012 start and the overall feeling that Tevez, despite his age (27), is kind of fed up with playing football, Tevez is still a great player, and is worth a lot of money. No reason in letting him go for free and actually paying his contract as well. Mancini could have gotten this accomplished if he had the players backing his version, which they aren’t.
Despite Tevez sitting between two players (James Milner and Kolarov, later on Nasri and Barry), none of his teammates have so far backed Mancini’s version that Tevez refused to enter the match. Coaches on the side are backing Mancini, but the only one to actually say he refused to come on is… Carlos Tevez. I didn’t feel right to play, so I didn’t. He later claimed he was misunderstood.
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So what is there to do with the player? Alex Ferguson, never shy of interferring in others affairs, is backing Roberto Mancini, saying – Roberto Mancini has come out of it showing his strength of character and management. We’ve all experienced our own difficulties in management and you cope with it as best you can. My only experience is strong management is important. There is nobody more important than the manager at a football club.
Ferguson himself coached Tevez for two years at Manchester United, a relationship that ended sourly as Tevez crossed the road, becoming blue, while tarnishing Ferguson’s handling of him along the way.
I’m pretty sure that if Tevez is officialy a player to be sold, the suitors will be lining up pretty quickly. Corinthians, Middle Eastern club, the Dagastan empire which can offer so much to anyone and are actually looking in to signing Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and others, or at least hoping to. Another option for Tevez is the West Ham, his first English club. They are in the Championship, but Tevez, despite the third-side signing scandal costing West Ham quite a lot of money back then, might find it as one of his better options come January. And who knows what Real Madrid will do.
Roberto Mancini has down-played the whole situation, saying Tevez is no longer his problem – I don’t have any complications. Only one complication that we had two days ago is that we lost against Bayern Munich, only this. We started very well we can do a fantastic season, I don’t have this problem. It is normal that one player is not happy to leave the pitch in an important game or to stay on the bench, it’s a normal situation for every manager.
Sources do tell the story of Roberto Mancini telling Carlos Tevez to F&^% Off back to Argentina after refusing to come on as a sub.
Like Ferguson, I’m backing Mancini. Tevez, despite his goal scoring abilities, is always one burnt fuse away from creating problems from within. Not worth the hassle and the problems he creates, especially with other, maybe better option around. Lets hope this works out well for both sides – for Tevez wherever he chooses to go and for Mancini and Manchester City.