A WhatsApp audio from the cardiologist who treats him and some suggestive phrase on his part made many soccer fans excited about seeing Sergio Agüero again on a field to play professionally.
Almost 40 months have passed since the last official match of the former Argentine national team forward, who in that period never completely separated himself from the sport or abandoned the arena: in different functions, he maintained a strong public presence, especially after his foray into different platforms. digital.
“I don't know what will await me in another life, but I have many people who love me and want the best for me.
I will continue to be linked to football and try to enjoy life a little more.
For now, I'm going to be calm, I'm not going to do anything for a while," Kun explained
on
December 15, 2021, when he announced his retirement from football in the stands of the Camp Nou stadium as a result of a
cardiac arrhythmia
that had been detected after feeling unwell in the middle of the match between
Barcelona
and
Alavés
on October 30.
After a few weeks of rest in which he divided his days between Miami and Punta del Este, and which he took advantage of to play golf and tennis, and ride horses, the former Manchester City and Atlético de Madrid player began to get heavily involved in different projects linked to activities that had entered their lives as recreational segments and ended up mutating into business opportunities.
In mid-2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Agüero had begun broadcasting on Twitch that quickly attracted numerous followers, to the point that his account today has 4.8 million followers (he also has 11.9 million followers on TikTok).
In these broadcasts, he interacted with his followers and other streamers in exchanges in which he addressed topics as diverse as the development of European football tournaments, electronic sports, Argentina's tax structure, security policies or the development of vaccines. against covid-19.
Based on that success, Disney signed him in April 2022 to add him to the ESPN and Star+ structure.
His main work since then has been carried out on streaming platforms, in parallel transmissions to those of the Champions League matches and other competitions broadcast by the media conglomerate's signals, in which he comments, in an extremely relaxed style, what It happens in meetings, while interacting with his followers.
Sergio Agüero holds the statuette he received during the Martín Fierro Latino Awards ceremony in November 2023.
This task earned him an unexpected recognition last November: at the first delivery of the Martín Fierro Latino Awards, whose ceremony took place at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami, the Association of Argentine Television and Radio Journalists (Aptra) awarded him the statuette that distinguished him as the most outstanding in the Digital Vision on TV or Platform category.
New technologies offered him other opportunities that the former soccer player knew how to exploit.
In October 2020, while he was still at Manchester City, he had launched Krü Esports, an esports organization of which he is the CEO.
After his retirement, he became more heavily involved in the activities of the structure that includes players, coaches, analysts, managers and streamers.
As part of this, in August 2023 the former forward traveled first to Düsseldorf to accompany his team's representatives at the Rocket League World Cup and then to Los Angeles to support the representatives who competed in the Valorant competition.
Sergio Agüero with the Krü Esports Valorant team.
The Krü Esports project received a strong boost last November, when Lionel Messi joined as co-owner of the organization after signing a corporate alliance with his friend and former teammate on the national team.
“I am happy to share the club with Leo in a new stage and with other challenges.
His presence is relevant because it projects values such as perseverance, humility and resilience.
He is a figure that inspires everyone and will be a great contribution to the scene in general,” Agüero highlighted.
In addition, in November 2022 it launched Kuniverse, its own space in The Sandbox (one of the main metaverse platforms in the world) which last December added a second episode.
To give impetus to this venture, the former forward usually plays online and shares content through his Twitch channel with other streamers and guests.
As if that were not enough, during these years Agüero also competed in different professional poker events, including the 2023 World Series that took place in Las Vegas, and made publications related to world soccer news on Stake, a betting and betting site. online casino.
Sergio Agüero participated in the 2023 World Series of Poker.
Beyond all these forays into new territories,
Kun
never left professional football, which continued to give him satisfaction, even though he no longer played on the playing fields.
In May 2022, he traveled to Manchester to attend the unveiling of the statue with which City immortalized him outside the Etihad Stadium.
“I am very grateful to the club for making this statue in recognition of my career in Manchester.
It is something very special and very beautiful for me, seeing myself 10 years ago is very exciting," he said during the event in which the galvanized steel structure made by the artist Andy Scott was presented, which commemorated the goal that The forward scored against Queen's Park Rangers in a match corresponding to the last date of the 2011/12 Premier League that earned City a title in the English league after 44 years.
Sergio Agüero next to his statue in Manchester.
That same year, he experienced up close the consecration of the Argentine team in the World Cup in Qatar.
Although he had traveled to the Middle East as one of ESPN's analysts, he remained in constant contact with those who had been his colleagues until the previous year and with whom he had shared in winning the Copa América in Brazil.
The former player visited the Argentine concentration at the University of Doha several times, participated in some training, followed the matches in each of the stadiums in which the team led by Lionel Scaloni performed and also starred in a memorable streaming session with Lionel Messi , Leandro Paredes, Rodrigo De Paul and Alejandro Gómez hours before the match against the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.
After the victory against France in the final, Agüero jumped onto the Lusail Stadium playing field to celebrate with his former teammates.
On the grass, he raised the cup and carried Messi.
He then participated in the celebrations in the locker room and accompanied the players in the caravan that took them back to the University of Doha.
Although the man trained in the lower divisions of Independiente has not played an official match for more than three years, he has participated in some exhibition matches.
On January 28, 2023, he put on the Barcelona Guayaquil shirt during the traditional
Yellow Night
, in which the Ecuadorian team presents its squad every year.
Sergio Agüero with Maximiliano Rodríguez during the Conmebol Legends Match that took place in Fort Lauderdale in December 2023.
And on December 5, he participated in a match between South American soccer figures organized by Conmebol at the DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale (United States).
That day he was part of the Tango team, directed by Roberto Trotta and made up, among others, of Gonzalo Higuaín, Javier Zanetti, Carlos Valderrama and the former Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt, who defeated the Samba team 2 to 1, led by Francisco Maturana and of which Ronaldinho and Iván Zamorano, among others, were part of it.
In addition, last year the former striker played some matches in the first season of the Kings League, a 7-a-side football competition created by Kosmos, the sporting events organizing company that was founded and is chaired by Gerard Piqué.
He did it with Kunisports, the team of which he is president, whose coach is the former Vélez player Martín Posse and in which Pablo Zabaleta, Augusto Fernández, Nicolás Pareja and Walter Montillo, among others, also played.
In those interventions, Agüero showed flashes of his category, although he did so in a tournament whose competitiveness is light years away from the super-professional football in which he stood out since he debuted with the Independiente shirt on July 5, 2003, when he was only 15 years and 33 days, in a match against San Lorenzo.
Reintegration into high-performance sports still seems like a utopia.
For now,
Kun
has been training for a few weeks.
Their short-term goal is to participate in two 7-a-side soccer tournaments in May that will be held in Argentina and the United States.
The rest?
Time (and the doctors) will tell...