Man Utd star Cavani is Boca Juniors’ top transfer target, but his salary would be slashed from £200k a week to £70k

BOCA JUNIORS could not have had a better warm up for Sunday’s clash against their great Buenos Aires rivals River Plate.

And Carlos Tevez could not have had a better return to the team after taking some time off to mourn the death of his father.

Away to an attractive Velez Sarsfield team, coached by former Southampton boss Mauricio Pellegrino, Boca won by an astonishing 7-1 margin.

Instead of playing Tevez behind a centre forward, they used him as a false nine, dropping to combine and opening up space for Colombian winger Sebastian Villa to cut in from the left.

In turn that opened up space for Colombian playmaker Edwin Cardona to thread his passes from the left of midfield.

The parts clicked wonderfully well. Playing without a specialist centre forward seemed to suit the team.

But there is excitement in Argentina that Boca will soon have the services of a genuine world class centre forward - Manchester United’s Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani.

Argentine football plays big in its much smaller neighbour. And Cavani grew up watching a fellow Uruguayan, Sergio Martinez, bang in the goals for Boca during the mid 1990s.

He always had the ambition to pull on the famous blue and yellow shirt - and there are hopes in Argentina that he could be just a few months away from crossing that one off the list.

Cavani has made a far bigger impression at Old Trafford than many had predicted. He has shown that even at the age of 34 he still has plenty to offer - and plenty to teach some of his younger team-mates.

His deal, which runs up to the end of the season, could be renewed for another year - providing both parties agree.

But the player has confessed that in the conditions of the pandemic it has not been easy for him to settle into Manchester.

Boca would offer the chance for him to go home - his native town of Salto is a little more than 200 miles away from Buenos Aires. And there is a chance at glory.

Boca have not won the Copa Libertadores, South America’s Champions League, since 2007. But they keep getting close - they reached the semi finals in the last two years, and were beaten finalists the year before.

With the knock out stage taking place in the second half of the year, Cavani could see out the Premier League season with United and then cross the Atlantic in time for the big games in the Libertadores.

It would mean taking a significant pay cut. According to the Argentine press, Cavani would want a three year deal, and would be happy to earn in that time the money he can make in one year with United where he earns around £200,000-a-week.

But even meeting these terms would not be easy for Boca, and there could be some delicate negotiations between the player and Boca director and former midfield maestro Juan Roman Riquelme.

For the time being, then, Edinson Cavani stays at Manchester United and Boca, without a specialist centre forward, prepare to take on River Plate.