The little town of Calchin is lost in the vastness of the Pampas, the great grasslands that feeds the people of Argentina’s cities.
With a population of around 2,500, and more than 30 miles off the main road between Cordova and Buenos Aires, it has eked out an existence by farming livestock, alfalfa and cereals, a small town unnoticed and unknown.
But these days if you take the diversion off the main highway and go to Calchin, there are new billboards on the approach roads to the town, proudly proclaiming “Welcome to Calchin, the land of Julian Alvarez ”. The unassuming folk of the tiny provincial town finally have something to shout about — and they want the world to know.
The 21-year-old footballer has completed his €17.9million move to Manchester City, but will stay at his current club River Plate on loan until summer, at the earliest.
And his exploits have placed his little, unassuming hometown firmly on the map.
Those who know Alvarez, the son of an infant school teacher and a truck driver at the local cereal factory, say he reflects the humble background in which he was raised — shy, polite and easy-going, off the field.
Read more: The full story of Alvarez's signing amid a low-key City announcement
But when he dons the famous red-banded short of River Plate — one of Argentina’s two footballing giants — the quiet country boy turns into a goal-hungry monster who is the latest in an illustrious list of players to be named South American Footballer of the Year, a list that includes Pele, Diego Maradona, Ronaldinho, Neymar and Carlos Tevez.
He knocked in 22 goals in 45 games for River last season, and as an accomplished set-piece specialist also provided 12 assists, to start a rush for his services which City have won.
The rapidity and size of his rise from being a 15-year-old playing in the regional league for his hometown team Club Atletico Calchin, to playing in a Copa Libertadores final, sharing a pitch with his idol Lionel Messi and being hunted by Real Madrid, Barcelona and a host of other clubs, has been bewildering.
His mum and dad made the journey from Calchin to Dubai to watch him in the 2018 Club World Cup, and admit there were tears of pride and joy, even though River Plate under-performed and only finished third in the tournament.
Mum Maria recalls his school assignment, at the age of seven, when he had to answer the question “What would you like to be when you grow up?” and he answered “Professional soccer player”.
Dad Gustavo, who works at the local cereal factory, spoke of his pride in seeing Fifa president Gianni Infantino hanging the third-place medal round his 18-year-old son’s neck.
Julian is the youngest of three football-mad brothers. The eldest is Agustin, who had plenty of talent and tried out for top-flight club Colon, but suffered a bad knee injury and switched his attention to education, graduating with a degree in accountancy.
The middle brother Rafael played for local club Calchin and went to study physical education at the nearby University of Cordoba.
It quickly became apparent that Julian, scoring goals for fun for Calchin, was on another level from his brothers, and top clubs — Belgrano, Talleres, and the two big Buenos Aires clubs, Boca and River Plate — were already sniffing around by the time he was nine years old.
By the age of 11 his reputation had spread further afield, and Real Madrid invited him to represent them in a junior tournament in Spain - he remembered standing on the pitch at the Bernabeu in awe, and later telling his brothers it was a football pitch where “you couldn't see the sky”.
He donned the famous all-white strip for the Peralanda tournament, scored twice in five games and provided the pass for the winning goal in the final against Real Betis.
He did well for Madrid, also scoring in friendly matches, but was too young to stay, with rules dictating a foreign boy had to be 13 before he could sign, so he headed back to Calchin with selfies taken with Sergio Ramos and Gonzalo Higuain to show to his school pals.
At that time his dad even took a call from Lionel’s Messi’s dad and agent Jorge, inviting him to join one of Barcelona’s foundations in Argentina - but his family turned down all offers, deeming Julian too young to leave home, so he remained at Calchin until he was 15, apart from a short spell living away at Argentinos Juniors.
River finally tempted him to make the seven-hour trip to the capital when he was 15, offering him accommodation, an English course at college and a place in their youth system, so he packed his bags and headed down the road.
He took with him his nickname of La Aranita, “The Little Spider” — a nickname that inspired the “Spiderman” goal celebration that has become iconic to River Plate fans.
The origin of the nickname is unclear; he was dubbed the Little Spider by friends back in his youth days at Calchin, and is now plain “La Arana”, The Spider.
When River won the title last year, and the latest Spiderman movie was all the rage, he was handed a mask of the Marvel Comics hero and wore it to go with his web-slinging hand gestures as the players celebrated on the pitch afterwards.
Alvarez may have been a small-town boy in the big city, shy and easy-going, but within two years his career had hit a meteoric upward curve, to the point where he was in the Argentina squad alongside his all-time hero Messi, playing in the Copa Libertadores final, and agreeing a lucrative professional deal with River with an initial release clause of 15 million euros.
He started life in the junior ranks at River Plate, down in the seventh tier of Argentine football, but scored 14 goals in his first season and quickly started to move up through the ranks.
By the start of 2018 he was in the reserve team, where he was closely watched by first team coach Marcelo Gallardo. By the end of that year he had made a goalscoring debut, played in the Copa Libertadores final as an 18-year-old sub, and played for the Argentina under-20 team against the senior side to help them prepare for the World Cup finals.
Alvarez admits he had to pinch himself when he found himself on the bench for both legs of the all-Argentine final against old enemies Boca Juniors - something akin to United and City meeting in a Champions League final.
The game was mired in controversy, after Boca’s team coach was attacked en route to the second leg of the final, its windows being smashed and pepper spray squirted through the holes.
The match was postponed and eventually shifted to Madrid, so Alvarez strode out once more at the Bernabeu.
With the score balanced at 3-3 on aggregate in extra time of the second leg, and players on both sides tiring, Boca turned to 34-year-old former City ace Tevez to try to rescue the match — and Gallardo turned to teenager Alvarez.
Neither man had a big influence on the outcome, but River Plate scored twice after Alvarez had gone on, to seal the fourth Copa Libertadores triumph in their history.
Alvarez returned home to Calchin that Christmas to a hero’s welcome, local people packing into the run-down local stadium to hail the local boy made good.
A stunned Alvarez said “The whole town was there — they were the people who always supported me.”
There was no holding him back, as injuries to River Plate’s senior strikers in 2019 gave him his chance of a run in the team. The goals started to flow, including an iconic strike against city rivals Independiente with his first touch as a substitute and the winner in the 2019 Copa Argentina final.
Then Covid struck, and football ground to a halt. It seemed that the pandemic was the only thing that could stop Alvarez’s sharp upward trajectory.
When football resumed later that year, he bagged five in six group games to see River safely through the 2020 Copa Libertadores group phase.
A year later he struck another legendary goal, earning River a 2-1 win in a Copa Libertadores game against Independiente Santa Fe, when they were missing an incredible 20 players through Covid, including all of their goalkeepers. They played midfielder Enzo Perez in goal!
Two more goals in the superclasico game against Boca — one of the fiercest rivalries in world football — established him as a huge hero to the River faithful.
As leading goalscorer in the Argentinian league - he bagged 21 in 42 games, plus six league assists to drive River to the title - his exploits soon attracted the interest of European clubs.
Not surprisingly, he was called up to the Argentina senior squad in May of last year and made his full international debut against Chile in June, replacing Angel Di Maria, and was in the squad that beat Brazil to loft the Copa America last summer.
Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Juventus, Fiorentina and Bayer Leverkusen all registered their interest, while Manchester United also took a close look — but it was City who made the concrete moves.
They announced the deal at 2pm on deadline day in low-key fashion, with minimal social media fanfare, with the forward likely to stay in South America until December if River are still in the Copa Libertadores. He's one for the future though, for sure.
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