How Champions League could decide £100m Alvarez's future

How Champions League could decide £100m Alvarez's futureByGuillem BalagueBBC Sport ColumnistPublished5 minutes agoCommentsJulian Alvarez's phone kept ringing, every day. It was Rodrigo de Paul, then Antoine Griezmann, then Giuliano Simeone, the Atletico Madrid's manager's son. And behind every call, pulling the strings, was Diego Simeone himself, firing messages into Alvarez's phone during the Copa America and the Paris Olympics of the summer of 2024.In the end, the World Cup-winning Argentina striker, who had just clinched the Premier League with Manchester City, had to beg for it to stop."Tell your dad to stop calling," Alvarez finally told Giuliano. He was coming, so could they all back off?The story shows the first time Alvarez encountered the intensity of Diego Simeone, and also why he chose Atletico Madrid over Paris St-Germain, who were reportedly offering up to £8.7m a season in wages.Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Julian Alvarez started his career with River Plate'The Little Spider'Alvarez grew up in Calchin, a town of 3,000 people in the province of Cordoba, Argentina. His brother Rafael started calling him 'La Aranita' - the Little Spider. When he played on the neighbourhood pitch, 50 metres from his front door, no-one could get the ball off him. He seemed to have too many legs. Opponents from other villages would show up asking: "Is La Aranita playing today?" The name stuck and his teachers were the only people who ever called him Julian.Aged 11, he impressed in a trial with Real Madrid, but returned home anyway, a decision he calls one of the most formative of his life. At 15, a River Plate scout named Juanjo Borrelli needed only one training session to decide that this kid from a tiny Cordoban town had to come to Buenos Aires. Borrelli told him he would start on the bench but he did not stay there for long.River Plate made Alvarez. In one extraordinary Copa Libertadores performa...