Argentina football star Carlos Tevez, who has been without a club for the past year, announced his retirement on Saturday. 

"I'm retiring, it's confirmed," the 38-year-old told Argentinian channel America TV.

Tevez said that "as a player, I gave everything I had in my heart and that leaves me at peace with myself." 

The star played 76 times for his country's national team, including at two World Cups, and was a part of the gold-medal winning team at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. 

A bit of controversy

At the club level, Tevez started and ended his career with Boca Juniors, winning the Copa Libertadores in 2003, and enjoyed huge success in England and Italy with a little bit of controversy.

In 2006, he joined West Ham, but his subsequent transfer to Manchester United a year later became mired in the 'third-party ownership' dispute, which was to prompt changes to both Premier League and FIFA regulations with regard to player contracts. 

At Manchester United, he won two Premier League titles and the 2008 Champions League, scoring in the penalty shoot-out against Chelsea. 

A year later, he made the controversial decision to cross Manchester to join United's biggest rivals, helping City to win the 2011-12 Premier League, their first English league title since 1968. 

He later traveled to Italy, winning two Serie A titles with Juventus before returning to Boca Juniors in 2015.

Planning to become a coach

Tevez was shocked by the death of his adoptive father, Segundo Tevez, from Covid-19 in February 2021 and stepped away from Boca in June that year for family reasons. 

"I stopped playing because I lost my number one fan and I lost the desire. I was eight years old when he came to see me play," he revealed on television. 

He pointed out that he now plans to become a football coach.