Tevez, from Fort Apache misery to mega-money

‘Pride and determination’

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 30, (AFP): From the violent streets of Buenos Aires’ notorious Fort Apache, the son of an alcoholic mother and without money to even buy a pair of boots, Carlos Tevez is now football’s biggest earner.

The fiery Argentine striker, who will bank a mind-boggling 38 million euros a year with Chinese super club Shanghai Shenhua, has come a long way in his 32 years.

Abandoned by his parents, Tevez was adopted by his uncle Segundo Tevez who he quickly learned to call ‘papa’.

Thanks to Segundo, the young Tevez found a way out of the everyday bloodshed which was a depressing way of life for his neighbourhood, family and friends.

On one occasion, his best pal was gunned down and killed by a bullet in the head in a shootout with police following an armed robbery at a city casino.

In November 1989, when Tevez was “You have to see him run on the pitch to understand. He was different from the others, he fought for every ball as if it was his last. He was always hungry,” remembers Bianchi.

Tevez’s scars from his youth are physical as well as psychological — like the one on his neck, the legacy of serious burns from boiling water when he was just nine months old.

The injury required a two-month stay in hospital.

From Fort Apache, he adopted a nickname of “The Apache”. He has also been dubbed “the people’s player” and, affectionately, “Carlitos”.

Despite the great riches awaiting him in China, Tevez has often appeared to snub money, opting to allow his heart to rule his head. In 2015, he returned to Boca Juniors from Juventus where he still had a year to run on a lucrative contract with the Italian giants.

At Boca, he was paid $2 million, a salary far inferior to what he was getting in Serie A as he ended a nine-year spell in Europe where he had also appeared for Manchester United, Manchester City and West Ham.

Back in Argentina, Tevez divides his time between the fashionable La Boca area of Buenos Aires and his mansion in the elite quarter of San Isidro.

The man born into a world of grinding poverty and gun battles, now buys homes for his family.

A keen golf player, he also cannot resist luxury cars while discreetly donating huge sums to charitable organisations.

At Christmas, he married his childhood sweetheart, the mother of his three children, at a lavish ceremony in Uruguay.

However, in a grim reminder of his troubled past, his home in Buenos Aires was burgled while he was away.

Bianchi

runner-up to the American for the past three slaloms.

After winning two giant slaloms the previous days, Shiffrin continued her dominance in slalom by landing her 23th career win in the discipline.

She has won all 12 World Cup slaloms she competed in since February 2015, having sat out five races with a right knee injury last season. That two-month layoff also cost her the season title in slalom, which she had won the previous three years.

To keep her winning streak running, Shiffrin had to overcome stomach problems.

She had been far from clean in her opening run, coming close to missing a gate twice and being 0.1 off the lead before finding enough speed in the bottom section to beat Velez Zuzulova by 0.09.

“I think I fought harder than any other run I’ve ever skied in slalom,” Shiffrin said, as she asked for a chair to sit down on while waiting in front of the leaderboard.

“The past races, it has been mostly nerves. When you get to the start, all of sudden I get to feel really, really sick,” she said. “Today, actually, I am not sick but the past days I have been sick, so I wasn’t really sure if I was sick like you have the flu or sick because of nerves. I was OK for the second part of my runs, so then it’s good.”

With Thursday’s win, Shiffrin extended her lead in the overall standings to 215 points over defending champion Lara Gut of Switzerland, who usually doesn’t Galaxy from 2005-2014, coming out of retirement for six regular-season matches and three playoff contests earlier this year.

ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Fox Soccer reported that Donovan had been offered a two-year deal by Real Salt Lake.

Donovan will turn 35 on March 4, the day Real Salt Lake plays host to Toronto FC in its 2017 season

compete in slaloms.

Shiffrin’s feat of winning three races in three days is not unique. Lindsey Vonn has managed it on four occasions — at Haus im Ennstal in 2010, and at Lake Louise in 2011, 2012 and 2015.

Austrian great Annemarie MoserProell even won four races in three days in Grindelwald, Switzerland, in Jan 1975. Those races included a combined event, with the downhill portion also counting as a separate race.

Her 26th career win puts Shiffrin in shared 12th position — with Michela Figini of Switzerland and Tina Maze of Slovenia — on the all-time women’s race winners list, but leaves her still 50 wins short of Vonn’s record.

In the season’s slalom standings, Shiffrin leads with the maximum 400 points, 110 clear of Velez Zuzulova and 140 ahead of Holdener.

The women’s World Cup continues with three more technical events — a slalom in Zagreb, Croatia, on Tuesday, followed by a GS and slalom in Maribor, Slovenia, at the weekend.