Finally selected for the PFA Team of the Year, after seven glorious years in England that have brought three Premier League titles to the Etihad, Sergio Agüero’s attention now turns to recovering from a knee injury that has kept him out of action for the majority of Manchester City’s games since March save for cameos in the Manchester derby and Champions League this month.
Taking to social media yesterday, Agüero confirmed having already undergone surgery and vowed to “get back soon to the field”. Though no timescale was specificed, and Pep Guardiola remains hopeful his striker will return for “the final games” of City’s campaign, it is believed that there will be no further Premier League action for Agüero this season.
The Argentine’s priority now then becomes regaining fitness for Russia 2018, though in a bizarre turn of events one of the world’s finest marksmen is far from guaranteed to be chosen by national team manager Jorge Sampaoli irrespective of physical condition.
It’s a predicament that most teams crave to find themselves in whereby a headache-inducing decision, the success of which could prove fatal to La Albiceleste’s hopes and Sampaoli’s tenure as head coach, must be made on who to include in a final squad of 23 among Agüero and Serie A stars Paulo Dybala, Gonzalo Higuain and Mauro Icardi.
Someone is bound to miss out. Though most fans and pundits tend to push towards statistics to dictate selection policy, Argentina’s case is different to most as individuals must be judged on their ability to handle pressure in crunch situations in light of failures at Brazil 2014 and in two successive Copa America finals.
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This leads many to automatically cancel out Higuain, the man who may have scored an impressive 15 goals in Italy this term but is held responsible by swathes of the public for having denied Lionel Messi the international trophies that stand between the Barcelona number 10 and eternal greatness by way of unforgivable misses in the aforementioned tournaments.
Similarly, Mauro Icardi may be second only to Ciro Immobile in the race for the Capocannoniere with an outstanding haul of 25 goals, remarkably almost half of Inter’s total output for the season, but has also been criticised for howlers in the recent Milan derby and for having seldom produced for his country when asked.
The Argentine public remains just as sceptical of Paulo Dybala and wary of European media buzz touting the Juventus attacker as Messi’s successor. In the eyes of many, the two are unable to play together for their country and the jury is still out on whether or not he too can perform at the highest level having disappointed in a vital qualifier in Uruguay and displaying a worrying brand of immaturity after a red card in a Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid.
All this works in Agüero’s favour, then. In Khun, third behind Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah in the race for the golden boot, Argentina boasts a talisman who though just as complicit in his generation’s underachieving is a proven winner that has played with off-pitch best friend Messi since their days in the youth ranks.
In a further display of the embarrassment of riches Sampaoli has at his disposal, further discussion on this matter would take in how Angel Di Maria can also fit into Argentina’s attacking system, as well as Boca Juniors’ Carlos Tevez and Cristian Pavón.
