A Few Legends Return...

I had a quick think about a post to put up on a day where I couldn't face more geometry study and my head was all sick feeling and whatnot, so I decided to do this. There have been more than a handful of Argentine footballers who have come to the bright lights and slick surfaces of Europe's top teams, and then headed back home when their star began to set. Recently, this has started happening in Brazil too, and if I have a spare few hours again soon I might throw something together on that. But for today we're just looking at Argentina, and some of the legends who have gone and come back to give the fans a goodbye in their home country.

Juan Sebastian Verón
One of the absolute greats, Juan Sebe Verón at Estudiantes de la Plata.
Verón began his career with Estudiantes in 1993, and helped them to return to Argentina's top flight in 1995. He comes from a footballing dynasty of sorts, in which his father Juan Ramón Verón and his uncle, Pedro Verde had also been professional footballers¹. Verón had a short spell at Boca in a team where he played with Maradona, but was fairly quickly noticed as a huge talent, and taken to Sampdoria by a man who has been much maligned in the English press, Sven-Göran Eriksson. Here he began to really dominate games, and moved to Parma and eventually to Lazio. It was from here that Manchester United bought him, and his time in England was certainly not a highlight for his career. His talent was undoubted, and the ability was there, but certainly it could be said his career stalled somewhat at this point. A move to Chlesea came afterwards, where he made very few appearances, and ended up on loan to Internazionale and eventually returned to Estudiantes. 2009 was to see the realisation of a dream for Verón, as he was able to lead by example, as captain, and guided his team to the Copa Libertadores final against Cruzeiro of Brazil. All round, he made a pretty successful return to his boyhood club, and has stated in the past that he may wish to run for the position of president of Estudiantes in the future.
Juan Román Riquelme

Riquelme is probably Ray Hudson's favourite player of all time (and if you don't know Hudson, look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS6Np-g_h5w He thinks Argentina are “merciless, like Kathy Hudson with the sledgehammer in that movie...”). He began his career at Argentinos Juniors, and was snapped up by Boca, the club he had supported as a boy, in 1995. He played in front of the crowd at La Bombonera for several very successful years, winning a few titles including the much coveted Copa Libertadores. He moved to Barcelona, but was never in favour with Loius Van Gaal (a man who is not without his enemies in football himself), and got very little game time. It was at Villareal, where he moved after his ultimately unsuccessful period at Barça, where his talent shone. In a four year period with the Yellow Submarine, Riquelme helped the team to the semi-finals of the Champions League, a huge achievement for a club with such a small base to build from. The situation regarding his leaving Villareal and going back to Boca was a bit of a murky one, and seemed to involve some tension and falling outs, although his eventual return was a welcome homecoming which saw more success for both Boca and Riquelme, including a good showing in the Libertadores in 2008. He has also formed part of the Boca squad which had gone 38 games unbeaten until this week, which is not a bad run all told.

David Trezeguet

Not many know that he spent his childhood in Buenos Aires, and he always been a huge River fan since he was a boy. Although he ended up playing for France, he still speaks Spanish like a an Argentine². He was born in Normandy in France, but returned to Buenos Aires, where his talent was spotted by Los Calamares, Club Atlético Platense³. Trezeguet was more or less immediately spotted, and was taken to Monaco in 1995. He arrived shortly after the departure of Wenger, but that didn't slow him down. He gained a name as a great goal scoring talent, and it wasn't long before his talent was recognised in Italy. His spell at Juventus saw him become the club's highest leading non-Italian goalscorer, netting 138 times in his ten year spell at the Old Lady. When his time in Italy was over, he moved to Hercules in Spain, based near Alicante, most likely because his wife is from there. As a newly promoted team, it wasn't for a large payday anyway. After a year there, he moved to Abu Dhabi based Baniyas, but returned quickly to Argentina, and signed this year for River Plate, the club he had supported as a boy in Buenos Aires all those years ago. He has picked up an injury recently, but has already scored two in his first three games back at the River, who are fighting for promotion to the Primera again, after being relegated for the first time in their history last year. He joins Leo Ponzio who returns from Zaragoza to help the team through one of the most difficult periods in its history.
Mauro Camoranesi

Camoranesi is one of the many in Argentina who claim Italian citizenship: nearly 4 million still hold Italian passports in the country, and they have greatly contributed culturally to Argentine society since the early twentieth century. He was born in Tandil, in Argentina, and had a fairly nomadic start to his footballing career, moving between Argentina, Mexico and even Uruguay, briefly. His spell of real success on the field was at Cruz Azul in Mexico, where he was able to impress by scoring 20 goals for the club from his position on the wing. This brought him onto the radar screen for Verona, where he had a similar goals haul across two seasons, and was eventually signed by Juventus, playing in the same team as a fellow-non-Argentine-but-really-is-Argentine-player, the aforementioned David Trezeguet. His time with Juventus saw the match fixing scandal and the relegation of the club, but he stayed loyal throughout this period, and continued with the Italian giant, and fought for their return to Serie A. He also picked up a World Cup Winner's medal for his troubles, as he played with the Italian national team, rather than Argentina. When he finally left Juve in 2010, he spent only six months with Stuttgart making just 7 appearances, before moving back to Argentina and signing with Lanus, a team which has an image of the Falklands or Malvinas Islands on their jersey this season. He has made some headlines upon his return, but mainly for kicking Patricio Toranzo in the head, more so than his performances.