Sergio Agüero Has Been Far More Than a Great Goalscorer for Manchester City

Sergio Agüero lashes in the goal against QPR that won Manchester City the 2012 title. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
Sergio Agüero lashes in the goal against QPR that won Manchester City the 2012 title. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
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Sergio Agüero Has Been Far More Than a Great Goalscorer for Manchester City

Sergio Agüero lashes in the goal against QPR that won Manchester City the 2012 title. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
Sergio Agüero lashes in the goal against QPR that won Manchester City the 2012 title. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

Sergio Agüero has scored 181 league goals for Manchester City, but one of them would have been sufficient to make him a legend. Whatever else Agüero had done in his career, his strike on the final day of the 2011-12 season, running on to receive Mario Balotelli’s only assist of that campaign before, with glorious inevitability, lashing his shot past Paddy Kenny, would have written his name in golden letters in the history of the club. There was, though, quite a lot else besides.

But let’s begin with that injury-time strike at the end of his first season at the Etihad, a goal that consecrated a new era of English football. Praise the awareness, praise the movement, praise his earlier instruction to Balotelli, praise the shot, but most of all praise the calmness in that moment, when a season came down to a single kick, he never looked like doubting himself. And this for City, a club that had come to be defined by doubt, a club that had become a byword for failure, a club for whom if it could go wrong, it usually did. That game against QPR stands now as the last battle between the old City and the new.

The task should have been straightforward: beat a team in serious danger of relegation, that had lost 13 of their 18 away games that season, to win the title. And yet City for 90 minutes had been doing their best to mess that up, even after Joey Barton had been sent off to reduce QPR to 10 men. It could have joined the great list of City pratfalls: Steve Lomas taking the ball to the corner to protect a draw when they needed a win to stay up, Jamie Pollock’s own goal, David James playing upfront, letting in eight at Middlesbrough, the 2-2 against QPR in 1998 that dragged them into the relegation zone in the second flight … But it didn’t because Agüero had the wherewithal to smash the ball hard and low past Kenny’s left hand.

There is probably nobody in the history of the club City fans, in the moment, would rather that chance had fallen to. That was his 30th club goal of the season in all competitions, a mark he would match or surpass on four further occasions in the following seven years. His consistency is remarkable. Since 2007, Agüero has got into double figures every season until this one (and with two months remaining, it’s not impossible he could get the seven further goals he requires). In all but two of those he has got past 20. It’s a long time since he surpassed Eric Book’s record as the club’s all-time top goalscorer; if he could somehow find nine more goals over the next two months, he would have improved Book’s mark by more than 50%.

Only Wayne Rooney, Alan Shearer and Andrew Cole have scored more Premier League goals, but they all had the advantage of having spent all or the vast majority of their careers in England; Thierry Henry is the only other foreign player in the top 10. And it’s not just goals: it’s only in the Premier League era that assists have been counted, but Agüero lies fourth in that list for City, and Raheem Sterling is within range.

As Richard Jolly pointed out on Twitter, Agüero at his peak had a run of six seasons in a row in which he scored 28 goals or more, the first player to do so in English football since Jimmy Greaves. And there is further resonance there in that both found themselves playing for a manager who, if they didn’t quite look at goal tallies with a sense of suspicion, were at the very least asking their center-forwards what else they brought.

Pep Guardiola’s conception of football is very different from that of Alf Ramsey, but both prioritize the process over individuals, both see goals as being only part of a striker’s job. “Pep is a very demanding coach and adapting to what he wanted was not easy during the first year,” Agüero told the Argentinian channel TyC in May 2018, admitting Guardiola had been “angry” with him at times. “As well as my responsibilities as a striker, he wanted to get me involved as the first defender of the team … I think this season [2017-18] we were on the same page with Pep. He told me he was happy with my performance and his anger was worth it because I had a better year.”

Agüero adapted. His movement changed and he did begin to lead the press. He had the intelligence and he had the application to modify his game. Unless he is ever-present from now, this will be his first season at City in which he has played fewer than 30 games, but it’s injury not ideology that has restricted him. His life in Manchester appears to have been exemplary, devoted to football and to his son (who lives in Argentina with Agüero’s ex-wife, the daughter of Diego Maradona, but before Covid would spend a week a month in Manchester). Not only has there been no hint of scandal, but he barely seems even to go out – which perhaps explains his dedication to gaming.

Barring something extraordinary, he will leave City with five league titles (more than any other City player in history), with a host of goalscoring records that may never be challenged and, perhaps most importantly, with a profound sense of goodwill. No player has done so much to change the image of the club.

The Guardian Sport



Rafael Nadal Retired after the Davis Cup. It's a Rare Team Event in Tennis

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz, left, shakes hands with Rafael Nadal during a training session at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz, left, shakes hands with Rafael Nadal during a training session at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
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Rafael Nadal Retired after the Davis Cup. It's a Rare Team Event in Tennis

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz, left, shakes hands with Rafael Nadal during a training session at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz, left, shakes hands with Rafael Nadal during a training session at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Rafael Nadal wanted to play his last match before retiring in Spain, representing Spain and wearing the red uniform used by Spain's Davis Cup squad.

“The feeling to play for your country, the feeling to play for your teammates ... when you win, everybody wins; when you lose, everybody loses, no?” Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam champion, said a day before his career ended when his nation was eliminated by the Netherlands at the annual competition. ”To share the good and bad moments is something different than (we have on a) daily basis (in) ... a very individual sport."

The men's Davis Cup, which concludes Sunday in this seaside city in southern Spain, and the women's Billie Jean King Cup, which wrapped up Wednesday with Italy as its champion, give tennis players a rare taste of what professional athletes in soccer, football, basketball, baseball, hockey and more are so used to, The AP reported.

Sharing a common goal, seeking and offering support, celebrating — or commiserating — as a group.

“We don’t get to represent our country a lot, and when we do, we want to make them proud at that moment,” said Alexei Popyrin, a member of the Australian roster that will go up against No. 1-ranked Jannik Sinner and defending champion Italy in the semifinals Saturday after getting past the United States on Thursday. “For us, it’s a really big deal. Growing up, it was something that was instilled in us. We would watch Davis Cup all the time on the TV at home, and we would just dream of playing for it. For us, it’s one of the priorities.”

Some players say they feel an on-court boost in team competitions, more of which have been popping up in recent years, including the Laver Cup, the United Cup and the ATP Cup.

“You're not just playing for yourself,” said 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu, part of Britain's BJK Cup team in Malaga. “You’re playing for everyone.”

There are benefits to being part of a team, of course, such as the off-court camaraderie: Two-time major finalist Jasmine Paolini said Italy's players engaged in serious games of UNO after dinner throughout the Billie Jean King Cup.

There also can be an obvious shared joy, as seen in the big smiles and warm hug shared by Sinner and Matteo Berrettini when they finished off a doubles victory together to complete a comeback win against Argentina on Thursday.

“Maybe because we’re tired of playing by ourselves — just for ourselves — and when we have these chances, it’s always nice,” Berrettini said.

On a purely practical level, this format gives someone a chance to remain in an event after losing a match, something that is rare in the usual sort of win-and-advance, lose-and-go-home tournament.

So even though Wimbledon semifinalist Lorenzo Musetti came up short against Francisco Cerúndolo in Italy's opener against Argentina, he could cheer as Sinner went 2-0 to overturn the deficit by winning the day's second singles match and pairing with Berrettini to keep their country in the draw.

“The last part of the year is always very tough,” Sinner said. “It's nice to have teammates to push you through.”

The flip side?

There can be an extra sense of pressure to not let down the players wearing your uniform — or the country whose anthem is played at the start of each session, unlike in tournaments year-round.

Also, it can be difficult to be sitting courtside and pulling for your nation without being able to alter the outcome.

“It’s definitely nerve-racking. ... I fully just bit all my fingernails off during the match," US Open runner-up Taylor Fritz said about what it was like to watch teammate Ben Shelton lose in a 16-14 third-set tiebreaker against Australia before getting on court himself. "I get way more nervous watching team events, and my friends play, than (when it’s) me, myself, playing.”