Messi and Tevez the focus of Champions League showdown, even if they don't want it that way

Carlos Tevez killed the journalist’s line of questioning as effortlessly as he might do an Andrea Pirlo pass that just landed on his instep. Asked about his personal rivalry with Lionel Messi during a media session on Monday, the Juventus striker replied: "You need to talk about the battle between Juventus and Barcelona. Not one between me and Leo."

Such a reaction was to be expected. Tevez has dwelled long enough on the World Cup that he missed last summer, and the accompanying reports – repeated in the Italian press this week – that Messi had something to do with it.

Might things have gone differently for Argentina in Brazil if Alejandro Sabella had found a way to incorporate both players into his squad? Perhaps. But Tevez has since been recalled to the national team by the manager’s successor, Gerardo Martino, and will play alongside Messi at this summer’s Copa América.

It is possible that differences between them still linger. Less plausible, however, is the suggestion that either man might draw additional motivation from lining up against the other on Saturday. A Champions League final provides quite enough motivation on its own terms, and especially for two teams seeking to complete a treble.

And yet, this final will still be a showdown between Tevez and Messi – even if they choose to believe otherwise. Not because of their personal history, but simply because they have done more than any other player to help their clubs get this far.

Messi is the joint-top scorer so far in this season’s Champions League, with 10 goals in 12 appearances. Tevez has seven, which sounds less impressive until you consider that this is a startling 44% of Juventus’s total for the tournament so far. (Messi has 36% of Barcelona’s haul.)

Nor should we be measuring either player’s contribution simply in goals. Messi is also the competition’s joint-leading provider of assists, with five. Tevez has only one, but that is not for want of trying. According to Opta, he is second only to Messi when it comes to chances created.

They are, on the surface, very different players. It is hard to imagine any team-mate saying of Messi, as Gigi Buffon did of Tevez this week, that "he is our fury." The Barcelona player is renowned for his subtlety, not his strength.

And yet, it is also true that our perceptions are skewed by appearances and personal histories. Messi is not as soft as his gentle features and polite off-pitch demeanour might make him appear – a truth that a great many defenders have discovered to their detriment during failed attempts to kick him out of a game.

Tevez has likewise often been pigeonholed as something of a brute. But whilst he is certainly not afraid to use his muscles and low centre of gravity to bulldoze past an opponent, he is just as capable of deceiving them through sleight of foot.

Off the pitch, too, he believes he is misrepresented. During a conversation with a journalist from La Repubblica newspaper this April, he talked about singing children’s songs to his daughter, an image which his interviewer confessed to finding improbable.

"And do you imagine me slaving over the stove?" asked Tevez. "No, right? And yet I am a very good cook, I prepare everything, I am great with Italian recipes, too. Everyone thinks that I am a hard case, a shit, and yet I am a romantic who lives for his family … I might not seem like it, but I am."

He might well be a better cook than Messi, but on the pitch Tevez himself will tell you that there is no comparison. He has defined his opponent many times over as best footballer on the planet and consistently rejected any attempts by Italian journalists to insert him into that conversation.

But what he and Messi can both say, as they prepare for Saturday’s final, is that they are playing something close to the best football of their career. Tevez needs just one more goal to make this his most prolific season ever. Messi has, after missing out last year’s Ballon d’Or, raised his production up another notch beyond that of Cristiano Ronaldo since the start of 2015.

It is for all of these reasons that the duel at a distance between Tevez and Messi will be one of the most compelling, and crucial, components of Saturday’s game. Now is not the time for worrying about what these two men think of one another. But it is a moment to admire what they can each do with a football.