When Carlos Tevez tearfully announced that he was leaving Boca Juniors for the third and final time in June 2021, he didn’t offer any clues about his future as a player. Deep inside though, he knew.
“I just woke up and said to my wife, ‘That’s it, I’m out’,” Tevez later said. “In my last season, my dad was in hospital with no brain activity. It was extremely difficult. I’d lost my number one fan, the one who had been with me since I was eight. I couldn’t look to his seat any more – it was empty.”
Four months before his Boca departure, his father, Segundo, died from COVID-related complications to his pre-existing diabetes. Despite helping the club win Argentina’s Copa Diego Armando Maradona on penalties that January, the 37-year-old Carlitos, usually the epitome of joy, had lost his characteristic smile. “There were several offers after I quit Boca, but without my dad there’s no point for me,” he said this June. “That’s it, it’s been a year now. I’m officially retired.”
But rather than just playing golf or moving into politics, as he’d hinted for many years, Tevez decided that
