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Tevez... Tevez...

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Hamid Ismailov Hamid Ismailov | 14:23 UK time, Thursday, 6 October 2011

I'm aware that my words will be out of sync and out of tune with that loud chorus of voices that is damning .

The internal inquiry is still going on, but the fans have already made up their mind: Tevez is the sole culprit.

Indeed all arguments seemingly support their view: Tevez is if not the highest paid, then at least one of the highest paid football players in the whole world.

The coach - Roberto Mancini had every right to ask him to play as a substitute at any time of the game and Tevez should have obeyed Mancini's decision.

It's a case of rebellion, unheard of in top league football and the rage of Man City supporters is quite understandable. Some of them spent thousands of pounds to see that match in Italy and had every right to expect commitment from all Man City players, including Tevez...

However, however, however...

I played football throughout my teenage years and even had hopes to play better than Pele.

Alas, it's the same old story of hopes turning - or rather burning up - into regret.

But I dare to think that I know something about the psychology of footballers - especially those with big egos.

I must say that I'm not one of Tevez's fans, quite the opposite. When I've seen him playing next to Messi for Argentina he seemed to me quite rough and, in some ways, one-dimensional.

So there's no personal bias on my part. But I can easily recognise his desire to play, his enormous determination, and his qualities as a fighter.

Though as a forward he is not 'my cup of tea', he must be well worth what he earns.

But let's get back to the incident itself, let's even assume that everything had happened as Mancini told us: Man City is losing 0-2, there are another 20 minutes of the game to go and he asks Tevez to warm up; and Tevez refuses to warm up and to play.

There's an old Uzbek joke.

Once, the character Mullah Nasreddin from Uzbek folklore was being teased by both of his two wives.

One of the wives asked Nasreddin in front of the other: "Tell us, whom do you love more, me or her?"

Nasreddin tried hard to look even-handed: "I love both of you equally!"

But the naughty wives went on and the older one said: "Imagine that all three of us are swimming in the river and if both of us start to drown. Who would you save?"

"I'd save both of you."

"But that would be impossible, the stream will be fast and we are heavy... You can only save one of us..."

Nasreddin looked simple-heartedly at the older one and said: "You can swim a bit, can't you?"

Thinking those two wives with the same husband, and then turning my thoughts to Tevez...

Manchester City bought not one but half a dozen world-class strikers: Dzeko, Aguero, Balotelli, Adebayor and Santa-Cruz.

For the 'top player' to be not a 'one and only' but a 'one of' is already an unbearable burden.

When on top of that, that person is treated as the 'second- third- or the fourth-best' choice and they also have unresolved family issues with your kids growing up in the opposite corner of the world - you have an explosive mixture, which waits for a release.

If one looks carefully, there's a moment of craftiness in Mancini's behaviour too.

If you can't win the lost game without Tevez and appeal to him as to the last resort, it means that he's better than others. Keeping him sidelined on the bench repeatedly is not fair.

But if he is not as good as he was (as Mancini says), what's the point of bringing him on instead of other, better (according to Mancini) strikers?

So as formal logic states: either-or.

Tevez must have felt something along these lines, when he proverbially exploded.

There's a bigger theme that emerges in this incident: a long lasting and strengthening tendency to treat the human body as a commodity.

Having been long established in the form of prostitution, it's becoming an integral part of modern day sport too.

For the top performing machines like Manchester City Tevez or Adebayor, Santa-Cruz or Balotelli are just spare parts, rather than human beings.

Like parts of high-performance cars they are well-looked after, polished and lubricated, but any unnecessary click - and they are immediately replaced to be thrown away.

Anelka could be bought instead of Shevchenko, Chamakh instead of Adebayor, Aguero instead of Tevez.

The human soul beneath the sporty body could always rebel at some point.

Tevez's case is partly about it too.

Maybe he is not the finest football player, but he is definitely an explosive fighter.

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