Young Kingdom

Tévez has a distinctive burn scar that runs down his neck from his right ear to his chest. He was accidentally scalded with boiling water as a child, which caused third-degree burns and kept him hospitalised in intensive care for nearly two months. After joining Boca Juniors, Tévez refused an offer from the club to have them cosmetically improved, saying that the scars were a part of who he was in the past and who he is today.

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Carlos Tevez was born in Fuerte Apache, a small neighborhood which is located in Buenos Aires. It wasn’t the most pleasant area to live in, a town where violence, drugs, poverty as well as a high crime rate made it one of the most dangerous places to live in Argentina.

Tevez describes his hard childhood as tough, as the Argentinian, had gone through a lot of trouble in his early years.

“There were tough times, growing up in Fuerte Apache,” Tevez said. ” When it was dark and you looked out of the window, what you saw would scare anyone. After a certain hour you couldn’t go into the street. It was incredible.”

Something that is still visible today is his scar. The striker suffered third degree burns down his face, neck and chest due to an accident with boiling water when he was just 10 months old. The scar was so bad, it left Tevez in intensive care for about two months. He refused to get rid of it, as he was playing for his local team. Then he refused to have them cosmetically improved by Boca Juniors, the first team he’d ever play for, saying the scars were part of his past and who he is today.

When asked about the scar, Tevez said, “It was a defining experience-it marked me for life. I won’t have plastic surgery. You either take me as I am or you don’t. The same goes for the teeth. I won’t change the way I am.”

His teeth, broken and crooked, were a result of a street fight as he was growing up. Carlos Tevez suffered this as he was having a row over money.

Carlos Tevez is a proud man, proud for where he is now and he says he could have easily chosen the wrong path.

“I could have started doing drugs and ended at the bottom, but instead I made it to the place where I am now. In fact my childhood was nice. I learned then all the values that grace me now: respect, humility, sacrifice.”

Despite an extremely deprived childhood, Tevez was someone that gave everything while playing football, as if it were a real match, and he still does. He finally got his reward when he played for his much loved Boca Juniors at the age of just 16.