Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano set for Champions League final reunion

As former West Ham team-mates Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano prepare to line up against each other in Saturday’s Champions League final, we trace their routes from the Boleyn Ground to Berlin with the help of former Hammers striker Dean Ashton…

Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano shocked the footballing world when they joined West Ham from Corinthians in August 2006 having recently starred in Argentina’s World Cup campaign.

It was a controversial transfer deal which had lasting legal consequences for the Hammers, but nine years later the former team-mates are preparing to swap friendship for rivalry when Juventus and Barcelona go head-to-head in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.

Tevez and Mascherano have reached the very pinnacle of European football since their time at West Ham, but they initially struggled to adapt to the Premier League. Their former Hammers team-mate Dean Ashton remembers their arrival in east London.

He told Sky Sports: “The first reaction was, how have we pulled off these signings? How have we come about getting two of the most exciting players in the world? We thought, right, we can step up another level with signings such as these.”

West Ham had secured a ninth-placed finish and reached the FA Cup final in the previous season, but optimism began to fade with a poor start to 2006/07 in which their Argentine arrivals were peripheral figures.

Culture change

“I think they both struggled with the culture change and certainly the fitness levels,” revealed Ashton, who was undergoing injury rehabilitation at the time having broken his ankle in the summer. “The big thing I noticed was that they were way down on the rest of the squad.”

Indeed, their absence from Pardew’s starting XIs came as little surprise to the former Norwich striker. “It didn’t surprise any of us because of how they were training,” he said. “They weren’t up to the level physically. Tevez was probably slightly better than Mascherano, but in training they didn’t look the world-class players they are now. They looked like they perhaps hadn’t played much football, or that they were off the pace.”

Tevez would eventually write himself into West Ham folklore by scoring seven goals in their final 10 games of the season, including a famous winner against champions Manchester United at Old Trafford which secured their Premier League survival on the final day of the campaign.

But Mascherano made just seven appearances in a West Ham shirt before joining Liverpool in January 2007. Pardew has since been ridiculed for preferring Hayden Mullins in defensive midfield, but Ashton insists the squad backed the manager’s decision at the time.

“Mascherano was struggling a bit in all parts of his game, so it didn’t really surprise us,” said Ashton. “Hayden Mullins is actually a very good player and had been in the team for quite a few years, so it didn’t surprise us that [Mascherano] started quite slowly and struggled in that first half of the season.”

Quality

But after a rocky introduction to English football, Tevez kept West Ham up almost single-handedly while Mascherano began to demonstrate his potential at Liverpool, playing in their Champions League final defeat to AC Milan in May 2007. “You started to see their quality,” added Ashton. “Especially Tevez, who really came to life with his goals. All the players realise now that there was a reason why there were so many clubs after them.”

UEFA Champions League Final

Within two years of the day they first arrived in the modest surroundings of West Ham’s Chadwell Heath training ground, both players had featured in Champions League finals. But while Mascherano suffered defeat, Tevez was triumphant, scoring in the penalty shoot-out as United beat Chelsea in Moscow in 2008.

Tevez was on the move again a year later, however, when he made his acrimonious switch across Manchester to City. The striker scored 52 goals in his first two seasons at the Etihad Stadium, winning the FA Cup and another Premier League title, but his 2011/12 campaign was disrupted by a fall-out with manager Roberto Mancini after which he was placed on gardening leave.

He came in from the cold and featured regularly the following season, but when he moved to Juventus in the summer of 2013, his critics insisted he was well past his best.

How wrong they were. Tevez fired Juve to an emphatic Serie A triumph as he smashed 19 league goals in his first season in Italy, and he has been even better this year. The Argentine has scored 29 goals in total, putting Massimiliano Allegri’s side within touching distance of a famous treble.

Standing in his way will be Mascherano, who is chasing a treble of his own after another excellent season in Catalonia. Major honours eluded the 30-year-old at Liverpool, but he is now hoping to add a second Champions League winners’ medal to a collection which also includes three La Ligas and two Copa del Reys.

Tevez and Mascherano have been through a lot together, but there will be no room for sentiment and no time for looking back at the Olympic Stadium.

Juventus v Barcelona: watch the Champions League final live on Sky Sports 1 HD from 6pm on Saturday