Julian Alvarez has become a beloved figure at Manchester City over the last year, both for his sweet personality and impact on the pitch, but it appears that his cute appearance actually resembles that of another former Manchester City midfielder.
The Argentine forward really isn’t one to be that bothered about how he looks or what others think about his appearance. He doesn’t seem to care about the freckles on his face and is more focused on improving himself as a footballer to become a world-class forward and an irreparable part at City.
However, Alvarez still seems to have a lot of fans raving about him and how ‘cute’ he looks with his baby-face features. Indeed, the 22-year-old probably doesn’t look his age and comes off as a bit of a baby-faced assassin – mostly due to his insistence to avoid any facial hair to make himself look more intimidating.
Who is Georgi Kinkladze?
Amid all this, some fans seem to have discovered a weird resemblance that Alvarez has to one former Manchester City playmaker who played well before all the gloom at the club brought on by the Qatari ownership.
Recently, some noticed how weirdly similar the Argentine World Cup winner looks to former Georgian midfielder Georgi Kinkladze, who spent three years at the club in the mid-1990s. For the City fans who have been supporting the club for well over the last 30 years or so, Kinkladze might be considered as a bit of a cult hero.
After arriving from Dinami Tbilisi in 1995, the midfielder was among their best performers in the 1995-96 Premier League season – in which they got relegated to the Football League First Division (the second division at that time). He scored 4 goals and produced as many assists in 37 Premier League appearances, before playing the next two seasons in the second division with them.
What resemblance do fans notice in Kinkladze and Alvarez?
Kinkladze ultimately left City in 1998 to join Ajax, after having made over 100 appearances for them and being among their best players in those three years – being renowned for his, dribbling style, scoring ability and creativity.
25 years after he left the Manchester side, the Georgian footballer has gone viral on social media because of his appearance and how similar Alvarez looks to him. At a closer glance, it is actually almost impossible to separate the two because of their near-exact facial features.
The Argentine forward appears to have the same nose shape as Kinkladze, as well as the same kind of hairstyle too. Even the minute details of their facial features, be it the shape of the cheekbones or other things, are nearly the same and some fans have been freaked out by how identical the two look like.
There are also some eerie similarities in their achievements before arriving at City. For example, Alvarez joined the Cityzens at the age of 22 after winning six titles with his former club (River Plate), just like Kinkladze did (winning six titles) with Dinamo Tbilisi.
However, some trying to claim that the Georgian midfielder also played with Alfe-Inge Haaland (like Alvarez does with Erling Haaland), but that is wrong – because he left the club before Alfe joined in 2000.
While not all of the new-age Manchester City fans know much about Kinkladze, this weird similarity between him and Alvarez has gotten quite a few fans to voice their appreciation for the Georgian midfielder and how good he was for the club.
These similarities between the two footballers of past and present, be it from their appearance or achievements, might indicate that nature does, indeed work in weird ways. Manchester City fans, however, will hope that Alvarez doesn’t take another page out of Kinkladze’s books and leave the club after his third year (in 2025) as well.