He was never going to get a call-up. He knew it, his club team-mates knew it, his former national team-mates knew it, and everyone who follows the day-to-day -- or even just the month-to-month -- of the Argentine national team knew it. But even though it's been apparent almost since Alejandro Sabella named his first Argentina squad, back in August 2011, that he wasn't going to call up one man, the degree of the clamour for him to go back on that decision ensures it's still a talking point. We need to talk about Carlos Tevez.
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To a certain degree, Franco Di Santo's inclusion in Argentina's 30-man longlist, which was announced on Tuesday evening, has muddied the waters a bit. In spite of Sabella's long-running refusal to call Tevez up, various sections of the press -- both in Argentina and abroad -- immediately took to Twitter to unfavourably compare Di Santo with Tevez. The truth is, of course, that that's unfair. Di Santo, after all, has not been called up in Tevez's place.
Let's start with the raw numbers. As my esteemed colleague Tim Vickery wrote in April, 'the last time Tevez had an extended run in the side was in the 2010 qualifiers, when his 11 starts and one substitute appearance yielded just one goal and two first-half red cards.' This has been something of a theme during Tevez's international career; regardless of his club form -- and no-one is denying that he's been astonishing at club level for all of his sides -- he's rarely produced on the international stage. He's got 13 goals in 64 matches for Argentina.
Sergio Agüero, by contrast, has 21 goals in forty-seven games (not counting the Olympic Football Tournament in 2008, at which he scored two in five). Lionel Messi? He has 37 goals in 84 matches (including 10 in 14 in competitive games since Sabella took charge). Gonzalo Higuaín has scored the same number of goals as Agüero in just 36 matches. Ángel Di María's got nine goals in 42 caps -- a better goals-per-game average than Tevez -- and he plays in midfield for Argentina.
With Tevez, though, it can never be solely about the numbers. Tevez, for his legions of fans here in Argentina, is 'El jugador del pueblo', 'The player of the people.' He'll put everything on the line for the Argentina shirt, they say. He'd die to be there.
And yet with the exit from the 2011 Copa América still fresh in everyone's memories, Tevez told the press, 'Playing for the national side is bad for one's reputation.' In June 2012, after almost a year of not being called up by Sabella, he said, 'I don't miss the national team... I'm happier watching them from the outside. I liked the team, but for now I don't want to be there.' (Both quotes appear in the opening paragraph of this Spanish-language piece by Cristian Grosso.)
It's often been reported that Sabella had a simple decision to make from the moment he took the national team job; Tevez or Messi. The two don't get on, it is said, and whilst Messi surely wouldn't quit the team if Tevez was called up, he'd certainly be a lot less happy. The explosion in Messi's form for his country under Sabella's stewardship -- or, to look at it another way, since Tevez's exclusion -- has been remarkable.
It's probably a little more nuanced than that in truth. Tevez has consistently denied a feud with Messi (whilst never denying that the two aren't bosom buddies). But a look at the manners in which he's left some of his club sides -- Corinthians, Manchester United and Manchester City are probably the most telling examples -- suggest he's a divisive figure inside dressing rooms as well as in the opinion columns. Even Sabella's predecessor, Sergio Batista, consistently left Tevez out of squads before reversing his decision and including the forward for the 2011 Copa América. Batista has since admitted that AFA president Julio Grondona leaned on him heavily to make that decision.
This time, Sabella has come under no such pressure. Grondona's been politically canny as ever, careful to point out that the squad is Sabella's, and Sabella's alone. Translation: don't blame me if it goes wrong! If Argentina go out of the World Cup, it won't be due to Tevez not being called up, but I'm willing to bet there will be at least some who blame the exit on Tevez's absence all the same. Perhaps, then, I was mistaken in the opening paragraph of this piece. Perhaps what Argentines need is, precisely, to stop talking about Carlitos.