Carlos Tevez is pushing ahead with plans for a retirement match next December, and the headline possibility is clear: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo could be asked to line up on the same side. That would turn a farewell game for Tevez into a rare reunion built around the Messi Ronaldo rivalry, even if neither player has agreed to take part.
The timing matters because the match is already being mapped to the weekend of 12 and 13 December or 18 and 19 December, with The Bombonera emerging as the likely stage. Those dates are meant to avoid the end of the Argentine professional league, but they also leave the project exposed to the club calendar if Boca Juniors need the ground on either weekend.
Tevez has held several meetings with Boca Juniors management over the details, which is why the plan is now moving beyond talk and into scheduling. His retirement from professional football came in June 2022, after a brief spell in China and a return to Boca, and his career left a strong enough footprint to justify the scale of the event: 11 titles, 94 goals and 279 matches.
The draw is not only the venue or the date. Tevez wants to invite around 60 former teammates from clubs including West Ham, Manchester City, Manchester United, Juventus, Boca Juniors and the Argentina national team, with the idea of making the night feel like a full career send-off rather than a tribute built around one appearance. That is also what makes the Messi Ronaldo rivalry angle so striking: the match is being framed around a possible shared team, but the invitation has not yet been turned into an acceptance.
There is a second layer to the story too. Coaching kept Tevez close to the game after he hung up his boots, with spells at Rosario Central, Independiente and Talleres Córdoba, so this is not a sudden return to football life but a final move in a career that never really left the spotlight. If Boca Juniors can clear the calendar and the invitations are accepted, next December could produce a farewell match that is talked about for the names on the team sheet as much as for Tevez himself.
