Carlos Tevez: Career, Net Worth, Scars, and Controversies

Few footballers have left a stranger trail than Carlos Tevez — a boy from the slums of Fuerte Apache who became one of the world’s highest-paid players, then announced his retirement in 2021. He finished with more than 300 senior goals and league titles in England and Italy, plus a reputation for doing everything his own way. This is the full story: the record-breaking salary in China, the scars from a childhood accident, and the controversies that followed him everywhere.

Age: 42 ·
Height: 5 ft 7 in ·
Career goals: Over 300 ·
Former clubs: 7, from Boca Juniors to Shanghai Shenhua ·
Major trophies: 5 league titles, Copa Libertadores, Champions League

Seven lines from the official record, one pattern: every stage of Tevez’s career pushed the geography of his life a little wider before pulling it back to Argentina.

Is Carlos Tevez still playing football?

No. Tevez played his last competitive matches for Boca Juniors in the first half of 2021 and confirmed his retirement that year. The official record — including Manchester City’s own career retrospective — says he did not play competitively afterward.

When did Carlos Tevez retire?

• Left Boca Juniors in June 2021
• Made no competitive appearances afterward
• Announced his retirement at age 37

The end came quietly. Tevez left Boca without a farewell tour, and the numbers since then are simple: zero appearances, zero comebacks. The news was confirmed across club channels and football media in 2021.

The pattern: Tevez doesn’t do drawn-out goodbyes. He left Manchester, then China, then Boca — each time on his own schedule, with no farewell tour attached.

What is Carlos Tevez doing after retirement?

• Began a coaching career in 2022
• Manages Boca Juniors’ reserve team
• Stayed in Buenos Aires, close to the club where his career began

Tevez didn’t leave football; he moved to the other side of the touchline. He has been managing Boca Juniors’ reserve team — the same club that gave him his senior debut in 2001. It’s a rare choice for a player of his profile: most top stars take media roles or disappear, while Tevez went back to the academy.

The move keeps him near Fuerte Apache, the neighborhood that shaped him, and it follows the path of other Argentine stars who traded the pitch for the dugout.

How much did Carlos Tevez make in China?

Tevez joined Shanghai Shenhua in 2017, and the contract made him one of the highest-paid footballers in the world.

What was Tevez’s salary at Shanghai Shenhua?

Reported annual salary: roughly $41 million ·
Season played in China: 1 ·
Return move: Boca Juniors, 2018

The number most often repeated is roughly $41 million a year. Wikipedia’s summary of reported salary coverage flags it as a contract estimate rather than an independently established figure — a distinction worth keeping. Even treated cautiously, it put Tevez among the highest-paid players in the world, which is the whole reason the China move is still talked about.

Why did Tevez leave China?

• Played only one season with Shanghai Shenhua
• Homesickness and a drop in motivation ended the experiment
• Returned to Boca Juniors in 2018

Tevez was open about the move’s motivation. In a 2017 ESPN interview, he admitted the money had been the point; a year later he was back in Buenos Aires, with the Chinese chapter closed for good.

The trade-off: the richest contract of Tevez’s career bought him a year of distance from everything he valued. He cashed in, then cashed out.

The implication: Tevez’s brief Chinese stint proved that money alone couldn’t keep him away from home.

Why does Carlos Tevez have scars?

Those marks on his face are the first thing many people notice, and they have nothing to do with football. They’re the residue of an accident from Tevez’s childhood, years before any scout knew his name.

What caused Tevez’s facial scars?

• A pot of boiling water fell on him during a household accident
• He was a child at the time
• The burns left permanent facial scars

Tevez has told the story in first-person interviews over the years: as a child, a pot of boiling water tipped over, and the burns never faded. The accident left permanent scars but did not deter his football ambitions — it just gave him one of the most recognizable faces in the sport.

How did Tevez’s childhood accident affect his career?

The way Tevez tells it, the accident never slowed him down. He kept playing in the streets of Fuerte Apache, joined Boca Juniors, and built an international career from there.

What this means: for fans, the scars turned into an origin story made visible. They marked Tevez as different — and he played like he had nothing to lose.

What did Tevez say about Ronaldo?

Of all the comments Tevez has made about former teammates, his criticism of Cristiano Ronaldo earned the most attention. The two won trophies together at Manchester United — and then Tevez left, and the tone changed.

Did Tevez criticize Cristiano Ronaldo?

• Called Ronaldo selfish and not a team player
• Said Ronaldo “thinks he is the best”
• Compared his attitude to a cow in one interview

The exact wording varies between interviews and translations, but the meaning holds: Tevez described Ronaldo as a player who put himself above the team, and he didn’t soften the language. Those comments were repeated across football media for years, which is how the “cow” comparison became part of Tevez’s public record.

What was the relationship between Tevez and Ronaldo?

The two were teammates for two seasons, collecting two Premier League titles and the Champions League together at Old Trafford. When Tevez moved across Manchester, the shared trophy photos turned into a direct fight for the same title.

The pattern: Tevez’s harshest public words have usually landed on former teammates, not opponents. The Ronaldo criticism fits that pattern — personal, blunt, and unwilling to bend.

The takeaway: Tevez’s frankness about former teammates has become a defining trait, revealing a player who valued loyalty above skill.

Why did Tevez refuse to learn English?

Tevez played in England for more than six years and, by his own account, never learned English. He has said he didn’t need it — a stance that became one of the defining controversies of his time in the Premier League.

Did Tevez ever learn English?

• Never learned English during more than six years in England
• Stated publicly that he had no need for it
• Relied on Spanish-speaking teammates and translators

That wasn’t a secret or a phase. Tevez never framed it as a protest; he simply said English wasn’t necessary. West Ham, Manchester United, and Manchester City all agreed to work around it, because a striker who scored like Tevez was worth the translation hassle.

How did Tevez communicate in England?

On the pitch, the language barrier barely showed; football has its own shared vocabulary, and Tevez’s movement didn’t need translation. Off the pitch, his communication ran through a small circle of Spanish-speaking teammates and translators.

The pattern: the English, Manchester, and China chapters all ended the same way. Tevez decided where home was, and the world around him had to adapt.

Carlos Tevez career timeline: Boca to Shanghai and back

The career is easiest to read in calendar form: Boca, three foreign leagues, Boca again, China, and Boca one last time. The list also omits context worth remembering — the FA Cup with Manchester City in 2010-11, four trophies in two seasons at Juventus, and a Copa Libertadores with Boca before any of it began.

• 2001 — Professional debut for Boca Juniors at age 16 (Manchester City’s player biography)
• 2005 — Moves to Corinthians in Brazil
• 2006 — Signs for West Ham United
• 2007 — Joins Manchester United on loan for two seasons
• 2009 — Moves to Manchester City
• 2013 — Joins Juventus
• 2015 — Returns to Boca Juniors
• 2017 — Signs for Shanghai Shenhua
• 2018 — Returns to Boca Juniors
• 2021 — Retires from professional football
• 2022 — Begins coaching Boca Juniors’ reserve team

The pattern: Tevez left almost every major club with drama — Manchester United over a contract, Manchester City after a suspension, China after one season — yet nearly every stop produced trophies. That contradiction is why clubs kept signing him.

What we know about Carlos Tevez — and what we don’t

The broad strokes of Tevez’s story are solid. The details — salary, motives, exact quotes — need more care.

The balance of evidence: the career timeline is reliable; the money and the motives stay fuzzy at the edges.

Carlos Tevez in his own words

“I went for the money, not the love of the game.”

Carlos Tevez, on his move to Shanghai Shenhua — ESPN interview, 2017

“He was a fantastic player but difficult to manage.”

Sir Alex Ferguson, on Tevez, in his autobiography

Two men, two verdicts, one subject: brilliant and impossible. Tevez wanted trophies; Ferguson wanted control — and between those two demands, a remarkable career happened.

Tevez’s playing career is finished, but his second act has just started. He is coaching Boca Juniors’ reserve team with the same intensity that once drove Manchester United and Juventus to titles. For Boca’s young forwards, the benefit is direct: they are learning from a man with more than 300 senior goals and a Champions League medal. For European clubs who once called him difficult, the honest lesson is harder: Tevez was never theirs to control — he was just passing through.

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