Time running out for Tevez
SHANGHAI — Eight months ago, when Carlos Tevez walked through the arrivals gate at Shanghai Pudong Airport, he had a bunch of flowers thrust into his hands.
A blue Shanghai Shenhua scarf was thrown around his neck and hundreds of fans mobbed the Argentine forward, who had just sealed a transfer deal that at the time made the highest paid soccer player on the planet.
His signing was heralded as a coup for the Chinese game.
Today, the 33-year-old has become a symbol of Chinese clubs’ largesse.
Chinese fans and media have an unflattering nickname for Tevez, “Very Homesick Boy” — a play on how his name is pronounced in Mandarin and a nod to problems he has had throughout his career settling anywhere.
Tevez, who reportedly pockets about $850,000 a week, has never stuck around for long at any club during a career that started at Boca Juniors in Argentina and took him to Brazil, England, Italy and back to Boca, before his surprise move to China in January.
Nobody expected him stay long term in Shanghai.
But even his critics are surprised at how quickly his Chinese adventure has fallen apart and how poorly he has done on the pitch during a season dogged by injury and indifferent form.
New Shenhua coach Wu Jingui last week accused Tevez of to being too overweight to play, then two days later said he had shown a better attitude and was doing extra training.
“With his current attitude we will see a different Tevez,” Wu said.
When Tevez was brought on by Wu for the second half of Saturday’s derby at Shanghai SIPG the Argentine was met with a muted reception from the traveling Shenhua fans, though some of them booed.
Shenhua soon trailed 3-0, and although Tevez scored his third CSL goal, his team was hammered 6-1.
Exit expected
Given his travails, fans had been fully expecting Tevez to leave when the season ends in November.
Now it would surprise nobody if Shenhua — struggling in the bottom quarter of the league — decided to cut its losses and let him go home before that.
Tevez, a former Argentina international whose past clubs include Manchester United, Manchester City and Juventus, has made few public comments.
Shenhua, where former Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Gus Poyet quit as manager last week, gave Tevez permission in August to return to Argentina, purportedly for treatment on a legmuscle injury.
Many did not expect him to come back to China, and few cared if he did.
But while in Argentina he was quoted as saying that a return to Boca would be “very difficult”.
“The Chinese are not stupid,” Tevez reportedly said.
His honeymoon period in Shanghai lasted just three months.
In April, Shenhua fans ripped Tevez when he was spotted cavorting at Shanghai Disneyland while his team was playing.
The player said he was injured and was entitled to spend time with his family.
A month later, Poyet gave an insight into Tevez’s struggles to settle in Shanghai, a metropolis of more than 30 million residents.
“The language is complicated, but with the food there are people who suffer a little more and that happened to Tevez,” Poyet told Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper.
“At the beginning almost nothing.
“We had a barbecue with (Shenhua players Fredy) Guarin and (Giovanni) Moreno and he ate we had to remove the Chinese food.”
Shenhua coach Wu is hopeful Tevez will belatedly rescue a team that has lost five straight CSL matches.
“His experience and level is not in doubt, it’s not like he needs to prove himself in the CSL,” Wu said. “In some ways he had some adaptation problems since he came here, but his arrival has brought more attention to Shenhua.”