The former City captain and crowd idol, speaking in our extended CITY+ 93:20, interviews was sat next to Tevez the night the Argentine striker was accused of refusing to warm-up against Bayern Munich, leading to a lengthy club suspension during the 2011/12 campaign.
But Zabaleta says the whole situation was no more than a misunderstanding that ended in the worst possible way for the team.
“I’d known Carlos for many years, because we played for Argentina U17s and U20 s together and I knew he was a winner,” said Zaba.
“Tevez at his peak was one of the best strikers I ever played with.
“He wasn’t the biggest and wasn’t the quickest, but he was skilful, strong and determined and he was a player I personally always wanted to have in the team.
“He was a true leader – and when he came back from Argentina towards the end of the season - he wanted to do what he could to help the team win the Premier League.
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“He scored a hat-trick against Norwich, and he did that golf celebration after he’d been spending time playing golf back home.
“He was great and he’s still one of the best players we ever had at this Club.
“It’s a shame he had the confrontation with Roberto Mancini, and we lost him for several months but his commitment at the end of the season was great and he helped us win some important games and scored vital goals.”
So, what of that night in Munich?
Zaba says it was a misunderstanding that was interpreted incorrectly and, in the wake of a 2-0 defeat to Bayern, snowballed out of control after the game.
“I was sat next to Carlos, and I remember he went for a warm-up and spent maybe 30-35 minutes warming up in the second-half,” he recalled.
“At some stage he probably knew he wasn’t going to come on and came back to the bench.
“Mancini was upset because we were losing, and he looked around and asked Carlos why he wasn’t warming up?
“Carlos said, ‘Boss, I am ready - I’ve been warming up for 35 minutes – I am ready if you want me to go on and play.
“Mancini didn’t get that message from Carlos and was angry and afterwards in the dressing room they argued, and eventually Mancini said, ‘Get a plane back to Argentina and don’t come back!’
“Carlos said, ‘OK, I’m going to do it.’
“The next day, Carlos wasn’t there at training, and we found out he’d flown home!
“He was a very important player for us and maybe in those situations, maybe it needed to be managed it in a different way.
“We couldn’t believe it because we couldn’t afford to lose anyone and needed all our best players to try and win the Premier League.
“But it was a big learning curve for all of us because we understood how we had to behave and that we all needed to pull together.
“We knew we couldn’t allow anything to happen like that again.”
