Perhaps it was inevitable that Sergio Aguero would end up at the Bernabeu, possibly even with the prize of a place in the Champions League final at stake. Manchester City's belated ascent to this stage has been facilitated in part by their top scorer, whether with his injury-time winner against Borussia Monchengladbach or his early opener against Dynamo Kiev. Yet the sense was long that Aguero was likely to line up in a Real Madrid shirt in such a game. Perhaps no longer. Aguero's first footballing return to the Spanish capital has the potential to prove his last. He may be the great lost Real striker, touted as the next Galactico by his former father-in-law Diego Maradona and subject of an undercurrent of interest for much of his five years at City.
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Had Aguero's previous employers been anyone other than Atletico Madrid, perhaps he would never have joined City.
Instead he seemed a Real target who, like David de Gea, long seemed to be taking the indirect route to the Bernabeu, via Manchester. “If Real Madrid had been interested, I’d be there,” Aguero said in 2012. The reality, as Real knew, was that Atletico would not sell him to them. Since then, City have shown diplomacy and obstinacy in keeping their man. “We are not a selling team,” said Manuel Pellegrini so often it almost appeared a catchphrase. And Aguero’s aims have changed. There is an acceptance now that he is unlikely to play for Real. The striker has stated he will return to Argentina and rejoin his first club, Independiente, when his City career ends, probably with the culmination of his current contract in 2019. And yet, if he does not have suitors to impress, he may have a point to prove.
Aguero has excelled against Real in the past, but he was kept uncharacteristically quiet in last week’s stalemate. “We didn’t leave him very much space,” said Real manager Zinedine Zidane. “We defended as a group. That was the idea, defend together. Aguero is a top player, we know that.” He has shown it, time and again, but while his career provides proof he can pierce the finest of defences, his campaign could lend itself to the incorrect impression he is a flat-track bully.
He became a rare visitor to score a hat-trick at Stamford Bridge but he has a solitary goal against the Premier League's top five. He has found the net against neither Paris Saint-Germain nor Real Madrid, missing a penalty in City's 1-0 win over the French champions, and has gone four Champions League games without even recording a shot on target. Consider how irrepressible he often is, it is unusual, not least because Aguero, who has scored seven goals in his last five league games, has been prolific in between.
This would be an opportune time to display that form on a grander occasion. Karim Benzema, who may owe his long Bernabeu career to City's refusal to sell Aguero, is a doubt, but Cristiano Ronaldo, scorer of 360 goals in 344 Real games, is likely to return. Pellegrini has long ranked Aguero as the third best player in the world, behind only his close friend Lionel Messi and the Portuguese, but taking City to a maiden Champions League final would be the sort of defining achievement that would make more outsiders concur. Aguero's legendary status at the Etihad Stadium was cemented the moment he scored the 94th-minute, title-deciding goal on the last day of the 2011/12 season. To others, one of the world's elite strikers needs a feat to catapult him up the global pecking order. He has determined many a match, often importantly, often incisively, but not some of the defining games. Aguero has failed to score in the finals of the World Cup, the Copa America, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the Uefa Cup.
This is a semi-final second leg, but it could have a finality for City.
Unless Aguero shows Real what they are missing.
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