IT’S A LOCKDOWN, KYLE, NOT A LOCK-IN WITH ESCORTS!
PERHAPS the most revealing segment of the behind-thescenes documentary about Manchester City was the three minutes examining Sergio Aguero’s life away from the field. Essentially, he doesn’t really have one.
Separated from the mother of his son, Aguero spends his hours away from training holed up in a plush but rather empty flat.
With young Benjamin visiting just once a month from Argentina, Aguero watches mafia and action movies in a cinema room designed for a family and occasionally hangs out with team-mate Nicolas Otamendi.
‘Most of the time I am on my own,’ Aguero says, staring blankly into the camera. In some ways it’s a little sad. No way, perhaps, for a man in the prime of life to spend his hours.
But the point is that Aguero sees it as a sacrifice worth making. What is a few years of relative loneliness and disconnection in exchange for a career at the top of the game?
Aguero is the leading goalscorer in City’s history and has played 97 times for Argentina. That, effectively, is the trade-off. That’s what the dedication brings you when the alternative is to be Kyle Walker or Jack Grealish.
Neither player has Aguero’s gifts but both men are hugely talented all the same. Walker, a club- mate of Aguero’s, is an athletic full back, Grealish a clever midfielder for Aston Villa admired by more successful clubs. But faced with the lockdown over the last two weeks, it proved beyond them.
Grealish went to a house party and pranged his car on leaving. Walker invited two young women to his home. An article yesterday in The Sun described the girls as ‘escorts’. Both men have apologised but had little choice. Grealish was called out by witnesses on social media, while one of Walker’s guests ran straight to the newspapers once she had stuffed his £1,000 in her purse.
Had they not been rumbled so spectacularly, we can presume these would not have been oneoff indiscretions. Young single men were not designed to spend long days and nights stuck at home on their own. Especially not those used to the endorphin rush of match day and the energy-sapping days of training. These are athletes accustomed to routine.
So this is a challenging time for footballers and even more so for those who do not have the distraction and comfort of family life.
But at the same time, Walker and Grealish are not alone. We are all going through the mill at this time. Each of us has it tough in our own way and how we respond will tell us much about ourselves.
Speaking to someone who would know this week, Grealish — the Villa captain — was described as a ‘bit stupid’. That is a shame because his football speaks of intelligence.
Walker, meanwhile, has a good reputation in the game but is said to have lost his way off the field.
Ultimately, both are responsible for their choices and the ones players make at the top of the game often make the difference between the great and the merely very good.
Aguero cannot have imagined when he fathered Benjamin 11 years ago that he would end up in an apartment on his own watching Goodfellas on repeat. He could have taken the easy path at any time. In Argentina, they are desperate for him to return to Independiente.
But the best centre forward of the Premier League era made a lifestyle choice just as, in recent days, Walker and Grealish have made theirs. Aguero stuck around and endured the challenges of life in England because he felt it was worth it.
He knows he can sit in the sun another day. Just like the rest of us.