Seasons watched: 2006–07 to 2009–10 (Age 18–21 seasons according to FBref)
When looking back at Sergio Agüero’s brilliant career to this point, many will gravitate towards his title clinching goal for Manchester City against QPR in May 2012, and it’s easy to see why. It’s the most iconic goal in Premier League history, so much so that there are several videos dedicated to recapping the madness of the occasion. Others might remark on how efficient a goalscorer he became during his time in England, including the ability to score from a variety of angles. Personally, it might be Agüero’s sheer consistency as an attacker that I most gravitate towards. Until the last couple of years where injuries took a major toll, you could bet on him playing somewhere between 2000–2500 league minutes and being among the leaders in non-penalty goals and assists per 90 minutes (this might partly explain why he didn’t end up winning any major individual PL awards).
Before Agüero became one of the greatest players in Manchester City’s history, he spent his first five seasons in Europe honing his craft for Atlético Madrid. As mentioned when analyzing Fernando Torres during the early-mid 2000's, Atlético were slowly making their way back from the depths of despair. Like with Torres, there was substantial hype surrounding Agüero. He was the most expensive signing in the club’s history to that point, and his performance in the FIFA U-20 World Cup helped him the Golden Boy award in 2007. You couldn’t do a credible list of the best young prospects in football in the late 2000’s without having him among the most promising.
Where the similarities between the two end is Agüero experienced team success at a higher level than Torres, with the arrival of Diego Forlán in 2007 helping jump start a successful period for Atlético. The two of them were effective as a striker tandem, particularly with Forlán’s tendency to float around the final third to dictate play. Versatility will be a major theme when analyzing this version of Agüero, as he already showed the capacity to do numerous things at at least a decent level, which helped translate to both individual and team success.
Scouting Report
Even at an early age, Agüero flashed enough moments of quality off-ball movement which wouldn’t make it shocking to see him later become an elite shot generator in the penalty box. He made plenty of the classic runs that one would expect from a top striker, whether it be simple straight-line dashes or playing on the blindside of the nearest defender before making a quick move. Part of what made him dangerous in these scenarios stemmed from his high-end acceleration, as it also allowed him to be very potent against opponents who tried to operate a high defensive line (he had solid timing on quickly getting him back into an onside position). He wasn’t simply someone who operated on the shoulder of centerbacks, as he had some awareness for knowing when to drop off into pockets of space or sidestepping laterally between the lines.
With that said, there were a few shortcomings with Agüero in this department. Although he did make a fair number of movements in behind, he probably could’ve been even more aggressive than he showed. Part of what makes a great striker involves gambling with their runs while knowing not every pass will get to them perfectly. He also had a weird tendency to sometimes be stationary when teammates were carrying the ball towards his area, and not offering them a potential passing option further forward.
In terms of being a ball-carrier and dribbler overall, Agüero provided decent value and possibly even greater than that. He could quickly spin from his marker to draw fouls in the opposition half, especially in semi-transition. He could distort the defense when cutting from the left flank or through the interior since his burst and balance also translated on-ball. A key move in 1v1’s for him involved setting up his body to set up the possibility of a shot before quickly faking the other direction. This made him tough to deal with inside of 25 yards, especially in potential shooting areas because defenders had to not get burned by being put on their back foot. Combined with being a credible threat to create for himself and others, Agüero was a handful to deal with when initiating.
There was enough to like with Agüero’s passing that one could think of him as a net-positive. Due to his willingness to occasionally play with his back to goal, he provided a bit of value through quick lay-offs to nearby teammates. He showed good feel for quick hitting passes during combination sequences which could quicken the tempo and get the attack into dangerous areas. Although there were instances of him holding onto the ball for too long and letting possessions fizzle out, in general I thought he was willing to take chances with deliveries behind the opposition backline. He had surprisingly good touch by utilizing the outside of the right foot, and could even bust out a bit of trickery by disguising the delivery of his passes.
At this stage, Agüero was able to more often leverage his athleticism on-ball to be a shot-maker. For a forward his size, he had a strong level of comfort in utilizing stiff-arms and even lightly shoving opponents away to create an extra bit of breathing room in the penalty area. What made this even more beneficial stemmed from him being more two-footed than average, and that made him a threat to create shots for himself from even the tightest of angles. With publicly available event data stretching back to the 2009–10 season, it does give us a peek into Agüero’s shooting habits. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is one could already see a noticeable amount of shots originating from the wide zones, which would continue to be a noteworthy part of his game throughout the 2010’s, and something he later mastered.
Analysis
There was a lot to be encouraged with regarding Agüero’s skillset during his under-21 seasons. He largely kept opposition defenses honest by attempting to make runs in behind, and although it’s not unreasonable to suggest he could’ve taken even more chances, it would be dishonest to think he didn’t at least perform solidly. He occasionally dropped into deeper areas to help connect play through quick lay-offs and lateral passes, and his connective tissue passing overall was decent. There were hints of sophistication which I didn’t expect beforehand, and combined with the ability to create for others on the move, he was likely a slightly above average passer relative to his position and possibly even greater. I don’t want to make too many assertions with Agüero’s shooting since there’s only one season of granular data to work off of, but it is noteworthy that he could both create his own shot and show comfort generating it from all areas.
Outside of his debut season in 2006–07, Agüero was quite productive individually over the four years. In 2008 and 2009, he ranked among the top 25 in NPGA per 90, and top 50 in 2010. Although we don’t have individual shot numbers from 2007, his lack of output could at least be somewhat traced back to bad shooting percentage luck in attack with Atlético Madrid only scoring on just over 8% of their league leading 572 total shots attempted. Perhaps a small factor for the inefficient shooting would be that him and Torres didn’t click particularly well during their lone season as teammates in 2007, whereas the fit alongside Forlán was cleaner. Without having leaguewide expected goal numbers to go off (the model used here accounted for angle, location, distance, and body part), we’re having to guess on this but I’m confident that Agüero’s NPXG per 90 mark of 0.545 in 2010 would’ve been among the better rates across Europe.
With Forlán and Agüero handling a large attacking load, Atlético achieved good results during this period. They ranked 1st, 4th, and 5th in shots for in La Liga from 2007–09, and only three others team in Europe’s big five leagues scored more goals on a per game basis in 2009 (Barcelona, Wolfsburg, and Real Madrid). They were also in the top 15 in end of season Elo Ratings during those years, with their best being 11th in 2009. This was likely the peak of those Agüero-Forlán led Atlético sides, and given how bad things were for them earlier in the decade, finishing top 4 domestically and losing in the round of 16 in the Champions League constituted a tremendously successful campaign. That season was almost the opposite in how variance can positively swing results, with them ranking second only to Barcelona in shooting percentage. It makes me not necessarily buy fully into Elo Ratings having them near the top 10, as I suspect if event data stretched back a few seasons prior to 2009–10, their shot profile would’ve looked something like this where it was death by a thousand cuts rather than maximizing the expected value of each shot.
Going back to the comparison involving Agüero and Torres, one could trace parts of Atlético’s history during the 2000’s through those two players. It’s certainly worth mentioning that Torres never got to play with a solid supporting cast, and I wonder how well the club would’ve fared in the mid 2000’s if Torres had Forlán to play off of. Both him and Agüero were roughly equal in terms of the quality of their forward movement, and I’m not entirely confident in saying either was the better shooter. Due to his capacity as a passer and being able to chain possessions, Agüero carried greater gravity when initiating on-ball. Again there’s absolutely a chance that Torres and Forlán (or someone of a similar talent level) could’ve produced strong results, particularly with La Liga largely being in flux from 2003–08. All things being equal, I think Agüero’s versatility in several areas made him slightly more scalable alongside top talents.
Coming into this, I had expected Agüero to provide a large chunk of his value off the ball and not be a net-positive in on-ball creation. After looking at the film and available data, I was wrong about the latter. While I wouldn’t necessarily label him as a very good passer (another issue he had was his passing touch from wide), there’s enough to suggest he was above average at this point. These seasons from 2007–10 also hinted at him later becoming a very good finisher through his all-around shooting. As well, he had the combination of individual and team production that you would hope to see. What keeps me from fully believing in Agüero stems primarily from him not having quite the high-revving engine off-ball at this point to constantly hunt for space going forward, which might make it slightly harder to employ a strong attacking setup with him being the lone striker. All things being equal, that’s not a major demerit and I would still have Sergio Agüero as a borderline great attacking prospect from 2007–10.
A big thank you once again to Maram AlBaharna for her contributions to this piece. Please support her work so she can continue to make quality content that’s publicly available to all. If you want to support my series, that would be greatly appreciated but it is totally understandable if this isn’t an option given the unprecedented times we’re living in.
Previous Profiles
#1: Patrick Kluivert #2: Thierry Henry #3: Michael Owen #4: Javier Saviola #5: Fernando Torres #6: Wayne Rooney #7: Lionel Messi
