Sergio Aguero

About Sergio Aguero

Sergio Agüero was fifteen when he made his debut for Independiente in 2003, the youngest player ever to appear in the Argentine top flight at the time, breaking a record that had belonged to Diego Maradona. He stayed at Independiente from 2003 to 2006, and in those three seasons in Avellaneda the boy everyone already called Kun went from curiosity to the most coveted young forward in South America.

Atlético Madrid signed him in 2006, and the five seasons that followed, through 2011, were his Spanish apprenticeship. He arrived as a teenager in a dressing room that needed goals and quickly provided them: short, powerful, low centre of gravity, impossible to knock off the ball, and with a finish that came from any angle. At Atlético he formed a memorable partnership with Diego Forlán, and by the end of his stay he was already one of the best strikers in La Liga.

In 2011 he moved to Manchester City, and the decade that followed made him a Premier League legend. His first season ended with the most famous goal in the club's history: in stoppage time on the last day of the 2011–12 season, against Queens Park Rangers, he scored the goal that won City the title on goal difference, ending a long wait for a league championship. Few title races have ever ended so dramatically. The commentator's call of his name is still replayed in Manchester every May.

From there he became the most prolific scorer City have ever had. Coaches came and went and the team evolved from a newly rich challenger into a dominant force, but Agüero remained the constant in the box. His game was built on movement across the front of defenders, sharp turns in tight spaces, and finishing with very little backlift. Few strikers have scored in the Premier League with such regularity over so many seasons, and fewer still made it look so simple. A half-chance was, for him, usually enough.

In 2021 he left as a free agent and joined Barcelona, where he hoped to finish his career alongside his friend Lionel Messi. Messi left that same summer, and after only a handful of appearances Agüero was diagnosed with a cardiac arrhythmia late in 2021. He announced his retirement shortly afterwards, which is why his Barcelona chapter covers 2021 alone.

With Argentina he played at several World Cups and Copa Américas and shared the forward line with Messi for more than a decade. Outside Argentina his club football was played in La Liga and the Premier League, but the shape of the career has four clear stations: Avellaneda, Madrid, Manchester and a brief, abrupt ending in Barcelona.