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Edinson Cavani and Lucas Torreira are both considering returning to South America, but not to their home nation of Uruguay.

Just across the Rio de la Plata in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, Boca Juniors has emerged as the place to be, or at least to say you would like to be.

It is perhaps not surprising: what even the nation’s richest club lacks in economic clout, it compensates for in that most under-estimated of football currencies, romantic draw.

“I have always thought about [playing for Boca]; I have always desired it,” Torreira, currently on loan at Atletico Madrid from Arsenal, told journalist Federico Bulos in a Youtube interview released on Thursday.

“My thoughts, the decision I want to make, is very clear. I would like to go now, at 25 years old, with the club playing for big things.”

Torreira’s comments – not the first he has made regarding his wish to represent the Xeneize – follow hot on the heels of statements made by Edinson Cavani’s father last month.

“If you ask me for a percentage, there is a 60 per cent chance he will come to South American football,” Luis explained to TyC Sports. “And I cannot deny he likes Boca.”

Recently, Brazil star Dani Alves and Peru legend Paolo Guerrero have also flirted with the Bombonera before ending up elsewhere, while Roma idol Daniele De Rossi fulfilled in 2019 what ex-team-mate and Boca star Leandro Paredes claimed was his “dream” with a short stay at the club.

Many of the stellar names bandied around as potential signings must be taken with a pinch of salt, being as they are the perfect manner for local television stations to pick up rating points.

But even so, something about Boca is undeniably attractive even for players active in far more lucrative leagues on the other side of the planet.

The Chocolate Box

“The mystique of the Bombonera made me feel affection for them,” ex-Brazil hardman Felipe Melo told ESPN in 2019.

While its stands have been silenced for the last 12 months due to coronavirus restrictions, there is no denying that Boca’s home ground is a spectacular place to play and watch football when the home fans are in full voice.

Space restrictions in the tough working-class neighbourhood of La Boca meant that in building the stadium architects and construction workers had to raise it almost vertically out of the ground. Vertigo sufferers would be advised to avoid the top two tiers

The Bombonera towers up on three sides, creating a uniquely dizzying, intimate atmosphere for a venue capable of holding over 60,000, while the wall of private boxes on the remaining edge – made necessary by the refusal of families living on the other side to sell their land – gives it a curious asymmetrical form when compared to modern identikit football grounds.

Goals scored by the home team provoke an explosion of noise that hits you instantly, and few who have visited the ‘Chocolate box’ can resist its charms.

The Maradona and Riquelme factor

For players of Cavani and Torreira’s generation, Boca also enjoy a separate selling point.

During the early 2000s, the team coached by Carlos Bianchi was near-unbeatable, winning three Copas Libertadores (a fourth arrived under current boss Miguel Angel Russo in 2007) and downing the mighty Real Madrid and Milan to lift the Intercontinental Cup on two occasions, in 2000 and 2003.

Those feats resonated not just across South America but also in Japan, where the Xeneize picked up a fanatical following.

One of the stars of the show was Juan Roman Riquelme, the delightfully languid wizard at No.10 who is now vice-president at the club.

Alongside the late, great Diego Maradona, Roman is one of Boca’s biggest historical icons, and both names weigh heavy when it comes to attracting talent to the Bombonera.

Both Torreira and Cavani have recently revealed holding talks with Roman, with Cavani admitting that he called the director to commiserate with him following Boca’s painful 3-0 Libertadores semi-final defeat to Santos.

Working alongside a recent legend of South American football is a powerful card in the club’s hands, and it one they plan to play in order to strengthen their ranks in the coming years.

No place like home

One thing the Covid pandemic has hammered home is that the world is, in fact, a large place. Millionaire footballers have not been exempted from draconian travel restrictions imposed across the globe, which have particularly hurt South American stars in Europe who cannot cross the Atlantic to see their loved ones.

“I want to be close to my family, above all to be with my father, who is hurting the most from the death of my mother,” Torreira told Bulos. “I have not been having a good time for the last two seasons here in Europe.

“I always try to have a smile on my face, you think all is well but that is not the case.”

Family is also at the top of Cavani’s list of priorities, according to his father, while also wishing to remain competitive.

“He wants to be close to his family and that is why I firmly believe that Edi will end up playing in a South American team, close to Uruguay,” he explained.

“I would like him to go and play in teams which have a chance of winning something big. Here, in Uruguay, you cannot even win an egg cup!”

The bottom line

There is, of course, one large impediment to such transfers taking place, and it’s the same reason why stars like Riquelme, Paredes and Carlos Tevez ultimately gravitate to Europe once they begin to make a name for themselves: Argentine teams, including Boca, simply cannot compete with the world’s elite clubs financially.

For that reason Alves, following several declarations of love for the Xeneize, was ultimately forced to clarify that a deal was never really on the cards.

The right-back pulls down a reported €4.2 million (£3.6m/$5m) a season at Sao Paulo, a figure that may be less than his biggest wage packet at the likes of Barcelona or Juventus but which dwarfs the €1.2m (£1m/$1.4m) that Tevez – both Boca and Argentina’s best-paid player – is said to earn annually.

Europe’s enormous transfer fees also mean that major deals are unlikely a club is willing to rescind the player’s contract in order to facilitate the move, or else, as Torreira has suggested, arrange a short-term loan switch to Boca’s benefit.

While both potential moves for the Uruguayans remain on the table, then, the possibility of Boca capturing either Cavani or the Arsenal midfielder remains low.

Not that the Xeneize will give up: the club is saving the vacant No.7 and No.9 shirts for the former should he decide to join in June and spearhead their Libertadores charge in 2021.

Marcos Rojo, who trod the same path from Manchester United to the Bombonera at the start of the year, also has one more ace up his sleeve.

“I told him if he comes, I will take him fishing,” the ex-Argentina defender told ESPN. “Over there in England, he used to be on my case every day, saying ‘bring the rods, bring the rods.’

“I told him, ‘Well, come over here now and I’ll invite you to go fishing in Argentina.'”