Players who have moved me.

Sergio Aguero

As Manchester City celebrate their third title in 3 years, I thought it fitting to pay tribute to their all-time leading goal scorer while we celebrate Erling Haaland’s exploits I think it make sense to remember who was there before him.

I’ve never rewatched a winning goal for a team I couldn’t care less about more than his. It freed me, it felt like a vicarious win. Arsenal couldn’t do it at that point, but Manchester City and Sergio Aguero could, and they did. In the same season in which I witnessed Arsenal’s greatest humiliation, I saw Manchester City and Sergio Aguero put Manchester United to the sword, and to add to that they snatched the league title from them too. You add to that the way he finished…

I’m not even just talking about just the one against QPR. He had that same finish and pulled it out the bag so many times. If you’ve watched him, you know what I’m talking about, Aguero made near post finishes his trademark. Trying to pick your favourite one genuinely becomes a task. He had a trademark finish, he scored so so many goals and still somehow found the time to find himself defined by this one kind of finish, you wouldn’t need to be watching the game super attentively but if you saw how the ball went in you knew who’d scored, truly a distinctive finisher.

Aguero is also one of the first footballers I heard about as being incredible long before I’d seen him play a full 90 minutes and actually paid attention to just him. I knew him before I knew him. Not through any typical means, but and I say rather sheepishly, through Fifa. Fifa 07 to be specific. I’d watched (passively at that) a maximum of 5 Atletico Madrid games at that point in time and all I knew about them was that they had this rapid striker that just knew how to finish, I managed to get to my fourth season and by then Aguero was a 91 on Fifa. It seemed unrealistic at the time; I thought maybe he was overrated, looking back now I think they might have undersold how good he could be.

As I got older, I’d get the chance to see him more frequently but just before then, I got the chance at a sneak peek at what all Premier League fans would see routinely in the years to come. A Champions League group stage game against Chelsea.

He looked nothing like his Fifa picture, but he was twice as good as the player I’d seen on my screen before then. Starting on the bench that night because of a certain Diego Forlan, he scored the first, absolutely rifled past Petr Cech, and the second of what would be his total tally of 15 goals in 22 appearances against Chelsea that night, was a freekick to equalise, right at the death in the 91st minute…

The first time I saw him play for City I didn’t understand how Manchester City managed to sign him, he looked like someone who should have been playing for Real Madrid, or some giant Italian club. In his first game for City again Two goals, and an assist, also something else that was different, his shirt number. Number 16, he would go on to change it a few years later to a number that you would more typically see a superstar wear, the #10, but for a fair portion of his Manchester City career, Sergio Aguero wore the number 16 and it was perfect, he had everything about him suggested he was a superstar. If you’re want to talk about the name test.. mate it doesn’t get much better than Sergio Kun Aguero. He was born to be a footballer.

He was so good that as time went by, I didn’t even want him to move clubs, it looked ideal for him at City, it made so much sense that this diminutive powerhouse would become a legend for them, he showed up in big games time after time, even as he found himself afflicted by various injuries, whenever he’d make his triumphant return it was like he had never been away. He has the best minutes per goal ratio in Premier League history (Erling Haaland’s exploits not being factored in at present).

Aguero felt ever present when you thought about Manchester City, even as his influence waned they just didn’t feel like the same Manchester City if he wasn’t starting, an icon, a figurehead, a true representative of how dangerous Manchester City had become for every other side in the Premier League, there isn’t a single fan of a Premier League side who can say they weren’t incredibly weary ahead of games where they knew their team would be up against Sergio Aguero. A true marksman left or right foot it did not matter. His biggest blemish will be that elusive Champions League medal but when you consider all he gave Manchester City, it feels almost insignificant, what he did in the 94th minute of stoppage time against Queens Park Rangers is eternal.

They may now have Erling Haaland, but they will never have another Sergio, “Kun” Aguero, truly they cannot replace him.