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Telegraph
6 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Lionel Messi in Miami – a football failure but a money-spinning triumph
There will be a time, said Lionel Messi's friend and former Argentina team-mate Sergio Agüero, when football (soccer) in the United States will be divided into two periods: Before Messi and After Messi. That may well be true. The bigger question, though, is what effect will Messi have had on that shift? After all, with the forward, 38 this month, kicking off Fifa's bloated and so far unloved Club World Cup in the cloying heat of Miami at a far from sold-out Hard Rock Stadium at 1am on Sunday (UK time), it could be the start of the countdown to his time in the US drawing to a close. Messi is out of contract at Inter Miami at the end of this year, having signed with a fanfare as a free agent in July 2023 from Paris St-Germain in one of the most extraordinary deals ever constructed in sport. The expectation remains that he will re-sign, although there have been murmurings that he has grown increasingly frustrated of late with the club's struggles and has shown flashes of anger towards referees. That is despite Miami bringing in those who played alongside him at Barcelona in Luis Suárez, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and head coach Javier Mascherano. There is a fear that should Miami bomb at the Club World Cup – a competition he has already won three times, albeit in a vastly different format – it may make up his mind to quit. But this has strongly been played down by the club, whose managing owner, Jorge Mas, says that contract negotiations are ongoing and that he wants Messi to 'finish his career here'. They hope to make an announcement within weeks. Anything but a contract extension would be damaging for Miami, who are desperate for Messi to lead them into their new stadium at the $1billion (£850 million) Freedom Park next year, and for US soccer. It is no coincidence that he was wooed to the US at a time when in consecutive years they were hosting the Copa America – which Messi won with Argentina – this summer's Club World Cup and then the 2026 World Cup, where 75 per cent of the fixtures will be played in the country and where it is hoped he will have his international swansong. This is about finance and geopolitical influence. And, thankfully, also football. A standout player in a very average league In a sense, the Club World Cup is a test run for the bigger prize: that World Cup. The first US World Cup in 1994 launched Major League Soccer two years later. The hope is that hosting it again will power MLS, which has undeniably stalled, to a new level. And to do that they need the Messi effect. One of the challenges MLS faces is that Americans want to watch the best, and MLS is simply not the best league in the world. But by association with Messi, it does become more important, and he remains by far the biggest name and is marketed as the face of football. For example, the UK-based sports intelligence firm Twenty First Group ranks MLS alongside the Ukrainian Premier League – 19th in the world – for having top players (just eight spread across six teams and Messi the stand-out). To put that in perspective, the Premier League has 258 of the top 1,250 players; La Liga is second with 185. MLS knows it must change if it is to achieve its global aim and there are claims that Messi being there has already started the conversations – about switching the season to be in line with Fifa's calendar, about allowing more spending. Even, maybe, about introducing relegation and promotion, although that still seems anathema to US owners. The big question remains: what will the difference be when Messi leaves MLS? There is a parallel with David Beckham, who is co-owner of Miami and played an integral role in wooing Messi. When Beckham signed for LA Galaxy in 2007 – when he was still just 32 – it took MLS to one level. Messi's mission is to take it to the next one. But will his time be as seismic as Beckham's? Eye-watering money, for life The Messi effect can also be divided into two areas: money and on-field success. Messi's signing was always likely to be a commercial success and the spoils have quickly piled up. But the danger remains that Messi will become nothing more than a commercial blip. Even if that blip has been astonishing. When Messi signed, his income per year was estimated at $60 million. But that does not tell half the story. It is made up of salary, signing-on bonus, but also a potentially lucrative deal to eventually award him equity in the team. Only Beckham was granted something similar – even if MLS paid a high price by allowing him to buy Miami's place in the league for just $25million, with the club now valued at $1 billion (£737 million). Not that he owns all of it. Messi's contract has similar benefits. With a trigger to own a percentage of Miami after he retires, Messi will be an MLS stakeholder, which the Americans hope will tie him into their league for the long term. On top of that, he has separate deals with Adidas, Fanatics and Apple. The latter, in particular, is significant. Messi signed in the first season when all MLS games were shown by Apple, behind a paywall, in a 10-year, $2.5 billion media rights deal with his own remuneration linked to new subscriptions. In terms of a league broadcast partner putting a player into the profits, we have never seen anything like that before. There was also talk that a prime motivator for the company was the South American market, where it was not dominant and Android still had a far larger footprint. What is intriguing is whether it has actually worked. Apple boasted of a huge increase in subscriber numbers – not that they were published – but more recently there has been speculation that the company might take advantage of a rumoured break clause after year five of the contract. What is not in dispute is that an early Apple TV+ docuseries Messi Meets America was a flop and was panned by critics. In terms of social media it has been trumpeted that before Messi arrived Miami had fewer than one million Instagram followers. Now they have 17 million – although Messi himself has 505 million. Messi has also drawn record crowds. This season, 72,610 watched Miami away to Kansas City and 65,612 at Foxborough. The Houston Dynamos even issued an apology to their angry fans for Messi not playing in their fixture, after they jacked up prices, offering them free tickets in return. Don Garber, the MLS commissioner, has claimed that Messi's pink Miami shirt is Adidas' top-seller – not just in football but for any of the company's shirts. MLS insists that Messi has helped put the league 'in front of a global audience' and 'piqued the interest of sports fans in our country'. Mas has likened Messi to Michael Jordan. The footballing magic is fading In pure football terms, Messi's move to the MLS is more complicated. This season in particular has been underwhelming for Miami, despite Messi being named MLS's most valuable player, even though he only played half the games, scoring 20 times and earning 16 assists in just 19 matches. He is still playing well, but it already feels a far cry from when he arrived in a blaze of publicity and excitement and his impact was immediate and dazzling. Messi's first hat trick with Inter Miami 🎩 (via @MLS) — B/R Football (@brfootball) October 20, 2024 Messi scored a free-kick in the dying seconds to win on his debut followed by a flurry of crucial, typically brilliant goals as Miami charged up from bottom of the league table and won their first-ever trophy, the Leagues Cup, with a strike in the final and with a host of celebrities – Leonardo Di Caprio, Kim Kardashian, Will Ferrell, Edward Norton, Selena Gomez – flocking to their games. 'It's like a movie,' Beckham purred. It certainly felt like it. Unfortunately Messi got injured and Miami reverted to type, missing out on the play-offs and the football has not really been the same ever since with Mascherano, in his first meaningful role as manager, struggling. Of the seven trophies they have had the chance to win with Messi, Miami have won two: that Leagues Cup followed by the Supporters Shield, which is awarded for gaining the most points. It was that prize that, controversially, Fifa president Gianni Infantino seized on to award Messi, sorry Miami, the final slot reserved for a Club World Cup host in the enlarged 32-team competition. It was a loophole, nothing more, with the argument in the US that the place should have gone to the MLS Cup winners, LA Galaxy. Clearly it should have done. But they do not have Messi. And Infantino wanted Messi – just as he wanted Saudi-based Cristiano Ronaldo and tried to force that to happen – to help christen his new baby, this tournament, with capacity crowds and a fervour of interest. The fear is that will not happen, with tickets being sold off cheaply for the inaugural game of Miami versus the Egyptian side Al-Ahly – although there is some credence to the argument that Fifa probably should have taken Messi on the road rather than in his home stadium, where Miami residents have ready access to see him. In fairness, demand has been strong for Real Madrid against Al-Hilal on June 18 in the same stadium, with the cheapest seats priced at $244 (£180). That may owe partly to a boost from the hiring of Xabi Alonso as head coach and the signing of Trent Alexander-Arnold. But the fact is Messi needs to achieve more on-field success with Miami, even if that sounds harsh given his age and the reality that, clearly, he cannot do it on his own. Even when he won the last World Cup in Qatar he had an Argentina side carefully built around him. Miami have tried to do that by bringing in a host of former Barcelona thirtysomethings. It has not had the same effect and the truth is Miami and Messi will not succeed until they win a trophy that really matters – such as the MLS Cup or the Concacaf Champions League. Can Miami win the Club World Cup? Without a doubt Messi – who returned from Buenos Aires immediately after Argentina's World Cup qualifier draw against Colombia on Wednesday, when he asked to be substituted – has been held back for this tournament. But winning it feels like a long shot, given the formidable opposition. Indeed, Miami will do well to get out of a group that also contains Porto and the Brazilian club Palmeiras. 'Messi is the one everyone wants to watch' In US, the attention around Messi has turned Miami into something of an unpopular club, one that other fans even want to see fail. Such is football rivalry, with Mas having described it as simple 'jealousy', although that usually follows a team being dominant on the pitch and hoovering up all the trophies, as well as having the glitz and glamour. It all places the spotlight even more firmly on Messi. There will be those who want to see if he, and Miami and, by extension, MLS and football in the US, fail at this Club World Cup. There will be those who want to see if he has still got it, to know if he can even turn back the clock and do what he did in Qatar at the last World Cup. 'We know Leo is there and for the world, for the fans, it was very important that Inter Miami was included because, whether some like it or not, Messi is the one everyone wants to watch,' Agüero declared in a statement provided by Fifa. It is fascinating, especially for a global audience who do not possess an Apple TV subscription and have not been following MLS. In fact, it probably all adds up to what Infantino wanted when he commissioned a new trophy from Tiffany &Co, set up a new competition shoehorned in Messi. Fifa needed Messi. But what happens in the next few weeks will go a long way to defining the Messi effect in America and whether it will be a ripple or a halo. At present opinion is divided.
Times
30-05-2025
- Business
- Times
Inside Manchester United's chaotic post-season Asian tour
It's Wednesday night and it's party time in the national stadium of Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur. A scratch team of players from the southeast Asian football federations, known as the Asean All-Stars, have done the unthinkable and beaten Manchester United in the first match of a two-game post-season tour for Ruben Amorim's beleaguered side. In the stadium's offices the prize for the victory, the Maybank Challenge Cup, (named after the sponsor of the friendly) is being handed around to staff for photographs. Just down the corridor in the interview area, the smiling match-winner from Myanmar, Maung Maung Lwin, is applauded as he does his umpteenth media engagement. Down in the bowels of the stadium, Lwin's team mate Sergio Agüero (no, not that one) is beset by anxiety rather than elation. The naturalised Malaysian, born in Argentina, is lurking around the dressing-room door, hoping that Alejandro Garnacho fulfils a promise he made during the game to give him his shirt. Instead, when United's wantaway winger departs, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes, he simply walks past Agüero and others present. Luckily for Agüero, one of United's kitmen saves the day, scooping Garnacho's jersey off the floor and handing it to him. On the big red United bus, which has 'TOUR' — and the insignia of all their sponsors — emblazoned on it, there is plenty of gallows humour. 'Only after the season we've had, can we lose a post-season friendly and get booed off by our own fans,' the joke goes. In the immediate aftermath of the embarrassing defeat there were no quips from the players. For the second time in the space of a week they were made to watch their opponents lift a trophy and, to make matters worse, the presentation ceremony was delayed because the officials had gone back into the dressing room to get changed. The United players, who also went on a lap of honour, were angry that they had to wait in the 30C-plus heat, so they complained to the organisers, who ran into the dressing room and brought the officials back on to the pitch. By that point on Wednesday night, Harry Maguire, André Onana and Diogo Dalot were on a private jet to India, having left the stadium at half-time. The three players, who had played in the opening half against the Asean All-Stars, had been chosen to appear at a question-and-answer session in Mumbai the following day. When United announced they were undertaking a post-match tour to Malaysia and Hong Kong, they did not want to alienate their strong Indian following. United have millions of Indian followers but they have never played a match there, so Onana, Dalot and Maguire skipped the second half of the first friendly and the entirety of the final match against Hong Kong, which United won on Friday night, to take part in the Q&A session in Mumbai. They arrived back in Manchester on Friday, which made them the envy of their team-mates, who are due to arrive home 24 hours later. United insist their players understand why they had to come on this trip — the £8million raised will, to a certain extent, soften the £10million penalty the club will pay to Adidas for failing to qualify for the Champions League for a second successive season. Privately, however, three sources have used the same phrase to describe the feelings of most of the squad at being dragged to the Far East during a time when they could have been on holiday with their families. 'They're fuming,' they said. Players attended several events organised by some of United's biggest sponsors, including Adidas, Tezos, Apollo, Maybank and Snapdragon, during this week-long, 14,000-mile round trip. One downbeat peripheral player advised a team-mate to give short answers in a Q&A session in Kuala Lumpur so that the appearance ended as quickly as possible. Ashley Westwood, the Hong Kong head coach, summed up the situation perfectly when he said that the United players needed these fixtures 'like a hole in the head' but conceded that money talks. 'This trip is all about revenues, it has become a thing,' Westwood said the day before United beat Hong Kong 3-1 on a sodden pitch. That said, the tour has been enjoyable for the players and staff in other senses. Given that this is essentially a post-season wind-down, the atmosphere in and around the W Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, where they stayed three nights, and the W Hotel in Hong Kong, which hosted them for one evening, has been relaxed and less disciplined than it would be on a pre-season tour. That became clear on the Air Malaysia aircraft that carried the players, staff and executives from Manchester to Kuala Lumpur last Sunday evening, shortly after United had defeated Aston Villa 2-0 in the final match of a wretched Premier League season. In the business and first-class seats saved for the players, music was played and some squad members and staff had a few drinks. The players have not been subjected to a curfew on this trip. Joshua Zirkzee walked over the road from the team hotel in Kuala Lumpur to a Thai restaurant one night after being unimpressed by the room-service options. Amad Diallo and Garnacho hired some scooters and whizzed around the city. A few players went out to a nightclub after they arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Monday night, accompanied by security staff. One popular member of staff wowed those present with his left-field dancing. Some players had a drink in the hotel bar after the loss to Asean All-Stars. Staff joined in too. Bruno Fernandes told them that he would pay for their drinks all night and he did. In the corner of the bar stood a gold vending machine that sells 187ml bottles of champagne for £40 a pop. If you buy five bottles, your sixth is free. Fernandes's future has been a hot topic among the travelling party. Some are convinced he will leave, others refuse to believe it. They all agree unanimously that United need to do everything they can to keep the 30-year-old captain. They know he is their best player and his leadership skills are valuable, particularly because morale is so low now after finishing 15th in the Premier League and failing to qualify for the Champions League. Fernandes has been seen giving guidance and help to the younger members of the 32-man party that United brought to the Far East. 'Are you a proper United fan then?' the United employee in a white Adidas polo shirt said to two men in United shirts as he walked them down the red carpet at the stadium in Kuala Lumpur (which was stuck to the floor by red electrical tape) last Wednesday in the VVIP area. Some of the 72,5000 fans present were guests of wealthy businesses trying to impress clients or reward employees, but some of them were genuine fans, including Daniel, an engineering student who paid £262 for his VVIP ticket, which involved a slap-up buffet dinner in a roped-off area of the stadium. 'We had [Edwin] van der Sar, [Patrice] Evra, Rio [Ferdinand], [Nemanja] Vidic, the Brazilian twins [Rafael and Fabio da Silva] …' the 25-year-old says, reciting the squad that United had when he started supporting them in 2008, as if to prove his credentials. United's squad is much worse these days but there was no way that would put him off coming to the match. 'It doesn't matter,' he said. 'It's about loyalty. The appeal of the Theatre of Dreams is not just about the 'Theatre' — it's about the actors, who are the players, and the producer, the coach.' Although there are 9,000 empty seats in Kuala Lumpur, selling north of 75,000 tickets (a small section of which were available for £8 and £16), is a sign that support for United remains strong. One man in the crowd is Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian prime minister. As a United fan, he is unhappy with the result, unlike many of the cabinet members in attendance, who are Liverpool supporters. That United retain a strong following in Asia is also evident, judging by the fact that more than 300 fans turned up to greet them at the team hotel, even though it had not been advertised that the players were staying there. 'This match is the biggest sporting event in Kuala Lumpur in 2025,' Christopher Raj, the chief executive of ShekhinahPR, a local firm contracted to publicise the All-Stars match, said. 'We had 600 media applications for the match but we only had space for 250. 'Today we have more than 100 media waiting for the team to turn up. They've been here for a long time.' When the squad eventually arrived, security guards had to hold the fans and media back behind a cordon on either side of the bus. Luke Shaw signed a few shirts for local media inside the hotel lobby — about 50 yards away from the fans — but most of the players went straight through reception and up to their rooms, as instructed by security staff, who are always aware of a potential crush due to the excitement of the crowd at these greetings. To avoid such an issue, the coach carrying the team to their hotel in Shanghai on their 2016 pre-season tour dropped the players off at the back entrance of the hotel, much to the annoyance of hundreds of people who were waiting for them in reception. Isuandar, a 31-year-old engineer from Kuala Lumpur, was happy to get a glimpse of his hero, Fernandes, from about 50 yards away. 'I have been here waiting for hours,' he said. 'Manchester is the biggest team in Malaysia.' TJ, who has travelled over from the UK, was less impressed. 'They can't come over and see a few kids,' he shouted as his young son beside him cried. 'It's disgusting.' When on pre-season tour, United sometimes organise well-attended public training sessions for their fans, but they chose not to on this occasion. It was probably for the best given the standard of football on show during the hour-long session in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. Zirkzee and Matthijs de Ligt, both returning from injury, did some running and stretches before the rest of the squad split into two units for the rondos. After that, Amorim directed a pretty lacklustre training drill that began with Tom Heaton launching the ball to the halfway line, where ten outfield players would each touch the ball before someone tried to shoot. Even though they were playing against mannequins, some of the passing — and in particular the finishing from Chido Obi — was poor. The organisers had bought the 7ft-high yellow mannequins especially for United's training session in an effort to impress Amorim, the head coach, and his staff but some were not filled with enough water and they collapsed in a heap, prompting jokes from the sidelines about a comparison between the men in yellow and United's defence in their Europa League final defeat by Tottenham Hotspur the previous Wednesday. Obi looked far more polished by the time he and United arrived in Hong Kong, where they were met by a deluge that made the pitch for their final friendly difficult to play on. The downpour was so great that the roof started leaking in the press room — a problem teams visiting Old Trafford will be familiar with. Obi, 17, scored twice as United came from behind to win 3-1 in what was Jonny Evans's last game at the club. Before heading to the airport, Fernandes and Garnacho — now without sunglasses –— signed autographs and posed for selfies with fans outside the dressing room.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sergio Agüero: ‘Dad never said I played well. He didn't want me to become cocky'
Sergio Agüero is in Cannes to promote a forthcoming documentary on his life and career – Kun by Agüero. Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images During a visit to Madrid in 2007, Anatoliy Byshovets, the then head coach of Lokomotiv Moscow, said watching Sergio Agüero was like visiting the Prado. Pep Guardiola said he was a legend. Jorge Valdano said he could invent anything, anywhere, a unique footballer who had lost all fear, although he was wrong on that. Lionel Messi said he did the impossible. Diego Maradona said Agüero reminded him of himself, phoning one day to apologise for not playing him more. 'I was a dickhead,' Maradona said. Sometimes it can feel like the one person who never said Agüero was good was the one person he really wanted to. When the former Manchester City striker announced he was retiring at the age of 33, forced to stop by a heart problem, all the stress accumulated beneath the surface since his debut at 15, his dad called and said he had never seen a better footballer. He had played 786 games and scored 427 goals by then. 'You waited until I retired to tell me that?!' Agüero replied. 'I was happy and sad at the same time,' he says. 'At last, he said something good.' Related: Messi and Ronaldo's continental exits show the limits of their swan songs Weekends are different now. It's not how Agüero planned it and of course he wishes he could play still. The finish was frightening, that day in October 2022 when the dizziness, blurred vision and suffocation gripped him, his heart racing. But there's a familiar mischief in his smile, a hint of relief too, when he says: 'I can have a gin and tonic in Cannes now.' The kid nicknamed after a Japanese cartoon character is in the French city for the release of a documentary, Kun by Agüero, which was an opportunity to take it all in, almost a therapy. And which, at its core, is the story of a boy and his father. 'People knew the football story already; I wanted to tell them how I lived, my personal journey, to see the sacrifice,' Agüero says. 'When I was a kid I thought: 'Ah, it's dead easy: these guys never train, they just scratch their balls.' No. It's fundamental to have people with you. In my case, my father. He was, let's say, very strict.' That's one way of putting it. Leonel del Castillo had been a better player than his son, or so he kept telling him, but didn't get the opportunity. The way Agüero tells it, his dad was never satisfied and never, ever, said he had played well. Emotionally the impact was profound and lasting; professionally, perhaps, it was too: there was a determination – a desperation – to win. Economically, there certainly was: a small boy raised in Los Eucaliptus, Quilmes, loaded with responsibility not only for his own salvation but all of theirs. Agüero had effectively been a professional since before he was 10. Leonel would take his son around Buenos Aires, from team to team, playing four, five games a day. Sometimes he would set a target for first-half goals and, when it was met, Sergio wouldn't even come out for the second period; he would already be en route to the next match. One day Agüero realised his dad was being paid for each appearance. Later, when he had become a young father himself, he would cut him from managing his money. The day he announced his retirement, Agüero kept looking up. His mother, Adriana, believes he was looking for his father but Leonel didn't come. 'If he had wanted me to, he would have called me,' his father says in the documentary. Yet if the initial, simple response is to cast his dad as the bad guy, Agüero insists: 'In the end if he wasn't [like that], what would have been of my life?' So he explains, in a quiet, slow voice, a sense of timidity and sensitivity punctured by moments of humour, that cheeky grin. There's a line in the documentary where Guardiola sums Agüero up: 'He is the least crack of the cracks.' 'You have to think about it from the other side. What if he hadn't pushed me?' Agüero says. 'In barrios like mine there is a lot of addiction, a lot of drugs. I would walk down passageways and smell marijuana. I didn't know what it was, but when I told my dad he went mad: 'Where?!' Three people get gunned down and it's normal. But you think about it and, no, it's not normal. I was hanging about, playing. All I wanted to do was play football but the trouble you could find yourself in could be very dangerous. The barrio consumes you. The boy who lived next to me had been arrested a few times. We used to play football together 'I found out later that my parents were struggling. It's not easy finding a way out, the barrio consumes you, takes you. I left at 12 and I remember visiting a year later: the boy who lived next to me was in a bad way, he had been arrested a few times. I couldn't believe it. We used to play football together.' 'When I was older, I asked my dad why he never said I played well,' Agüero says. 'He said he didn't want me thinking I was the best, getting cocky. He thought he was keeping me from losing my head. He always got angry with me after matches. He didn't want anyone else to tell me I was good either. He even wanted to control my friends. My old man and me have always got on well then badly, then well again: good, bad, good, bad, good, bad … we pissed each other off but he's my dad and I'm going to love him the same. The [documentary] series was in part about asking … well, why he said those things. Why did he bring me up like that?' Has he seen it? Agüero smiles. 'No, but he does speak in it, so … He called me. I said: 'Listen, say whatever you want, freely. I spoke about what I felt; you say what you feel.' He said: 'Well, OK' … He'll have seen the trailer. Let's see what his reaction is when he sees it. Maybe he'll feel it's exaggerated. For now, he's fine. If he had really been annoyed, he wouldn't be sending me messages. He knows roughly what's in it. My sisters called him and he said: 'But I didn't do anything, all I did was tell him he was bad at football.' He keeps that one going, like a joke.' 'Anyway,' Agüero says, cracking up, 'I said to him: 'It's thanks to you too that I'm here in Cannes.' It's some way from home, another measure of what Agüero achieved with the men he played with. It takes a while, and actually there are six of them because he wants to play too, but he does eventually name his perfect five-a-side team of teammates over the years: Messi first, then him. Emiliano Martínez in goal. Vincent Kompany – 'someone has to put the foot in' – David Silva. Kevin De Bruyne. And Pep Guardiola on the bench. First there was Independiente, then Agüero left for Atlético Madrid the day after his 18th birthday. He didn't find out he was going alone until the night before, and it hurt. When he tired of Atlético's inability to compete, he wanted to leave. Real Madrid was the intended destination but Atlético blocked a move; instead, the club's chief executive, Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, called Manchester City, where he would go on to became a legend. Not that he would say so; not that he could say so, either. 'I didn't know any English at all,' Agüero says, laughing. 'Pablo Zabaleta helped me a lot. David Silva was there, Yaya Touré, [Carlos] Tevez. When I sat on the English table, I would be thinking: 'Shit.' They would say: 'Come, sit down.' I would listen and, bit by bit, without ever picking up a pencil or having a teacher, I would get it. The English boys were very good with me. They treated me well, defended me. My biggest concern anyway was on the pitch. And I ended up quite good.' Agüero ended up in galvanised steel, a statue outside the ground immortalising him and replicating that goal against QPR to clinch City's first Premier League title. 'I have friends who go to games and they send me pictures of it and I think: 'This is mad.' That will always be there,' Agüero says. 'With time I appreciated how important that goal was but I find it hard sometimes to hear people talk about it because I think: 'Che, there are others on the team.' Look, if Mario Balotelli doesn't play the pass. It's the most important goal in my career and City's most important. I know that. It was Kun Agüero, so OK: I'm happy, proud, that I scored it and it is for ever in the history of the club. But it was everyone.' He had been at City for a decade when Guardiola decided it was time for him to go. He soon got a call from Messi. The closest of friends since they were 15, roommates in the national team, Messi had an idea: why not come to Barcelona? They're looking for a No 9. 'It was going to be spectacular: a chance to make it to the [2022] World Cup in the best shape, and together,' Agüero remembers. Instead, within days, a financial crisis meant Messi was forced out of Barcelona and then, that October, in just his second start, Agüero walked off the pitch never to return. He had got into the shape of his life but there was stress, his parents' split affecting him. That day against Alavés wasn't the first time that he had heart problems. He had been operated on at 13 and had experienced other episodes, his surgeon describing him as a master of managing stress. This wasn't so unusual, he thought. But this arrhythmia was different. The doctor told him: if you were my son, I would say don't play again. Agüero decided he had a career to be proud of, that it was the right time for him to retire. That said, he resists now. 'I haven't actually had my retirement pay, eh,' he says jumping in, laughing. He has, though, had things to do, investing in hotels and becoming a successful streamer during the pandemic, something playful, accessible about him drawing people in. While, initially, he put on weight – 'I wasn't podgy, I was a barrel' – he then changed his diet, now looks well and says he's enjoying this new phase. Being at Cannes is fun. There's a cheerfulness about him here, on the surface at least. Those around him see a man at peace, released. Yet he had been denied the perfect ending. 'The idea was to play with Leo and go the World Cup together,' Agüero says. 'But then that thing happened with him. And then the arrhythmia, so …' There's a pause, quiet. At the end of the final in Qatar, Agüero carried Messi around the pitch on his shoulders, his friend holding the World Cup trophy 17 years after they won the under-20 title together. 'Although I didn't play, I feel like a champion,' Agüero says. 'My last goal was against Real Madrid, which is not bad. And you know what I take with me from Barcelona? How passionate people were about the club. How good they were to me, how they treated me. It was like I was Messi. I said: 'Look, I'm not Leo.'' No, you're Sergio Agüero, and you're good. Kun by Agüero is streaming on Disney+ from Wednesday
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
🎥 Re-live all of Ederson's record-setting Premier League assists 🎯
Ederson has become Manchester City's secret weapon to goal. From Sergio Agüero to Nico O'Reilly, the Brazilian has provided a record-setting seven Premier League assists - remarkably all from inside his own penalty area. No goalkeeper has provided more goal involvements than Ederson during his time with Pep Guardiola's side with each one almost as impressive as the last. Check them out below. All 7️⃣ of Ederson's @premierleague assists 🧤🎯 — Manchester City (@ManCity) April 13, 2025 How many more will he produce before hanging up his gloves in east Manchester? 📸 Matt McNulty - 2025 Getty Images
The Guardian
11-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘A parasitical business model': how ticket resellers squeeze out loyal supporters
At first glance it was not obvious why Manchester City fans were so upset about the announcement at the end of last month that the club had signed a multi-year agreement with Viagogo. After all, the difference between their previous tally of eight ticket resale partners and nine is pretty marginal and, besides, it was stipulated that tickets would not be taken from ordinary fans but from the existing allocation of hospitality seats. But the story touched a nerve, and at the following home game thousands responded to the call from three supporters' groups to leave their seats empty until the ninth minute. 'These resellers, they don't offer anything of value,' Chris Neville, secretary of one of the fan groups, Trade Union Blues, told the BBC. 'They have a completely parasitical business model where they take something that already exists and sell it for a profit. We're loyal fans. We don't object to people who want to come to Manchester and have a good time and take in a City game. What we object to is the fact the club now seems to be prioritising these fans over longstanding loyal fans.' This fear appears well grounded, for reasons the club's leadership has never made any attempt to hide. Ferran Soriano, City's chief executive, made his approach to match days absolutely clear in a speech he gave at the World Government Summit in Dubai in 2014. 'There has been a major change in the business model,' he said. 'Twenty years ago, 30 years ago, what was the business model of a football club? It was the same as a circus in the sense that you get the money from people going to the stadium to watch a show live. This is where you get the money. That's it. 'The business model is not a circus any more. The business model looks similar to Walt Disney or Warner Bros. Walt Disney has characters – Mickey Mouse – Warner Bros, Bugs Bunny. With a character they do TV programmes, movies. They have theme parks. They sell shirts and caps. A football club does the same thing – we don't have Mickey Mouse, we have Sergio Agüero. And with Sergio Agüero, we sell shirts, we sell caps, we sell TV programmes – the games. We have a theme park – the stadium. So our business today, the business of a football club, is very similar to any big media company. It's not a circus any more.' The problem with long-term fans, the indefatigable old-timers who turn up week in and week out for year after year, is that they tend not to see the ground as a theme park, or to buy many caps and shirts. 'To a certain extent season-ticket holders have outlived their usefulness,' says Kieran Maguire, an associate professor in football finance at the University of Liverpool and co-host of the Price of Football podcast. 'If I'm a Championship club and I'm trying to get my ground three-quarters full I need my season-ticket holders there. For smaller clubs, the benefit of season-ticket holders is clear. But Manchester United could easily sell 80,000 tickets to 80,000 different people every home fixture. For the elite clubs, season-ticket holders are bed-blockers to a certain extent. They tend to be older and if they buy merchandise they buy it once a season. Tourists are more likely to empty their wallets on overpriced tat in the club shop.' Liverpool gave a clear indication of their attitude to long-term fans last year, when the opening of a redeveloped Anfield Road Stand boosted the stadium's capacity by 7,000. Their season-ticket waiting list runs very comfortably into five figures, and is so unwieldy it has been closed since 2017; some people have been on it for more than a quarter of a century, patiently waiting their turn. For most, this was not it: they got only 1,000 of the new tickets, the rest earmarked for occasional or one-off visitors. Manchester City's plans for their North Stand, currently being redeveloped, include 'new premium, seated areas', with the club hoping to entrench their position as 'a world-class entertainment destination for fans and global visitors alike'. Resale partners help clubs access international fans while distancing themselves from the high prices charged. Many offer tickets to matches across Europe, and by default list prices in dollars or euros; one major reseller, listing tickets at nine Premier League grounds, has sold packages through Expedia, Groupon and Thomas Cook; another is based in Israel; Liverpool have partners in Sweden and Denmark. But these ticket offers do not just populate home areas with tourists, they offer an easy route in for away fans, with sometimes violent results. Manchester City have also struggled to police their exchange scheme, which allows anyone who pays a £35 fee to access, at face value, seats returned by season-ticket holders. Many of those tickets have ended up in the hands of away fans – before February's FA Cup tie against Plymouth, City cancelled nearly 250 snaffled by first-time buyers living within 30 miles of Home Park – or of touts, and this season more than 500 accounts have been suspended or closed for touting. Last year City recruited a ticket compliance officer to help them regain control. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion While ticket exchanges may have been conceived to ensure full stadiums and good atmospheres, several clubs have come to see them as another opportunity to boost profits. 'Clubs are realising that if they tell fans they will resell tickets on their behalf, they can repackage those tickets at a higher price as a premium product via one of their resale partners,' says Maguire. 'So at Manchester United you might go to a warehouse in Trafford Park, get a pie and a pint, hear a few anecdotes from a former player, and you'll pay a premium price for that. Commercially, that absolutely makes sense.' Season-ticket holders tend to see themselves as the heartbeat of their clubs, as keepers of the flame, essential, irreplaceable. But it is increasingly clear that some clubs see them as more hindrance than help and are slowly, quietly starting to squeeze them out. As City's protesting fans seem to have realised, the consequences may be anything but Mickey Mouse.
