Carlos Tevez: On why  refused to learn English and dislike for Manchester

The former Manchester United and Manchester City striker said he decided early on that if anyone wanted to speak to him, they should learn Spanish.

The Argentinian, who also played for West Ham United and earned 76 caps for his country, said a reason for his unwillingness to adapt to English culture was that a call-up to fight against Britain in the Falklands war had triggered his uncle’s descent into alcoholism.

Tevez, who famously complained on Argentinian TV when he was still Manchester City captain that everything about Manchester was bad, told a radio interviewer in his homeland over the weekend: “I had a cultural problem with the English. I didn’t want to learn English, I wanted them to learn Spanish.

“I have an uncle who played in River Plate. He’s the only River supporter in my family. He played in the reserve team and when he was going to make his debut with the first team, he got called up to fight in the Falklands war.

 “He suffered after that and became an alcoholic. That marked me a lot because he was very close to me.”

Opening up on his feelings about England on DSportsRadio, the 39-year-old summed up the seven years he spent in England as: “Okay, I’m here for work but I’m not getting used to English culture. You want to speak to me, then you learn Spanish because I’m not going to learn English.”

He added: “Very few people know this story but today I can tell it.”

Fellow Argentinian Pablo Zabaleta, then a full back at Manchester City, urged Tevez to improve his English for the good of the team after the striker moved from their city rivals United in July 2009. The Buenos Aires-born defender said in October that year: “Carlos tries sometimes to speak English. I said to him he needs to come to me for lessons. It’s important because we need to speak with team-mates and managers.”

Tevez’s reluctance to learn the language was one of the criticisms levelled at him when he was at Old Trafford. He escaped punishment for a serious motoring offence in September 2011 because his English was so poor he could not read the penalty notice sent to him.

Tevez, who was manager of top flight Argentine side Rosario Central until late last year, made his feelings about Manchester abundantly clear when he was interviewed on one of his country’s leading TV shows in June 2011. He said he could not wait to leave the city for good and claimed that the area had “nothing”.

Susana Giménez, a popular Argentine talk-show host, had pointed out another South American celebrity — model Evangelina Anderson, the wife of former Argentina centre back Martín Demichelis — had bought a house in the sunkissed Spanish resort of Marbella.

Tevez laughed as he replied: “Yes but Marbella is different from Manchester. You can buy a holiday house in Marbella. But I’m never going back to Manchester, not even on holiday, not for anything.”