It doesn’t even rank as the most famous injury-time goal Sergio Aguero has scored in front of the Etihad Stadium’s North Stand. Then again, when a footballer has earned his club their first league title in 44 years with a 94th-minute goal on the final day of the season, how could it be?
Yet this ranked No 2 in the compendium of his greatest hits as a Manchester City player. There were 90 minutes on the clock, two goals apiece on the scoreboard and a group table showing City winless and at the foot of the group when Jerome Boateng misjudged a clearance. Aguero capitalised, surging through and sliding his shot past Manuel Neuer.
His hat-trick was completed, City’s win sealed, Bayern Munich’s first defeat in 19 games clinched in memorable, magnificent fashion.
Read more: Manuel Pellegrini urges Manchester City to seize chance in Champions League
As they had on the May day in 2012 when Aguero rendered City champions, some fans had made the mistake of leaving early. As on that unforgettable occasion, it ended 3-2, courtesy of two late goals. As in that seminal match, too, Aguero’s shirt-off celebration brought him a booking. It was a small price to pay for sending the Etihad Stadium into raptures.
That is something Aguero can do. He has the capacity to bring hope where there was despair, to secure a win where defeat beckoned.
“If you want to succeed at anything you need a special player in special form,” captain Vincent Kompany said. “Sergio Aguero is our special player and when he is in that form he makes things achievable.”
A Premier League season was transformed by the Argentine’s razor-sharp ruthlessness. A Champions League campaign may yet be, too. City still require a win against Roma in the Stadio Olimpico on December 10 and for Bayern Munich to take points off CSKA Moscow but Pep Guardiola pledged: “I think Manchester City and Roma know we are going to try and win the game.”
The argument from City, too, was that their winning mentality is beyond debate. A strange fatalism seemed to envelop the Etihad Stadium for much of the second half, as though they were resigned to their fate.
Yet an extraordinary finale lent itself to different conclusions.
“Always, always fight ‘til the end,” tweeted Aguero minutes after final whistle.
“We fight to the end,” said manager Manuel Pellegrini, adopting the same phrase.
Indeed, the soundtrack to the 2012 finale – “we’re Man City, we fight to the end” – came from the crowd again.
The end of Champions League games had contained a cruelty for City. Defeat in Munich and a draw in Moscow brought a solitary point after the concession of late goals. This time they scored them. Xabi Alonso provided that collectors’ item, a misplaced pass that Stevan Jovetic intercepted to send Aguero scurrying clear for the equaliser. Boateng erred for the winner.
“We made two mistakes and that is why we lost,” added Guardiola. “We lost the game. We gave them the game.” He excused Alonso and Boateng, however, referencing a “gargantuan” effort with 10 men. The great culprit was Mehdi Benatia, the former City target who scythed Aguero down, conceding a penalty and receiving his marching orders.
The Argentine converted it, scoring his 15th of the season. Numbers 16 and 17 followed in a campaign that has only encompassed 18 games. He had three shots. He scored three goals. They earned three points.
The problem, as Pellegrini pointed out was that: “We cannot concede two goals every game we play because it is very difficult to win.”
They conceded two in the space of six minutes to Bayern’s 10 men. Alonso’s low free kick whizzed past a static Joe Hart. Then the former City player Jerome Boateng crossed and Lewandowski climbed highest looped a header over Hart.
The Pole, indisputably, is one of the game’s finest strikers. So, too, is Aguero. “He is one of the best players of the world,” Pellegrini said.
And how City required one.
With Yaya Toure and Fernandinho suspended, with David Silva injured, with his former sidekick Alvaro Negredo now at Valencia, their hopes rested with one man. He obliged.
The coolest finisher of them all delivered at the death again and, in an instant, City forgot their disillusionment with Uefa and a competition that has brought them a diet of disappointment. Aguero excelled and exhilarated. City were excited.
Well, almost everyone was. Was it, Pellegrini was asked, one of his most dramatic wins?
“No, I don’t think so,” he replied. It was a bizarre coda to a brilliant display.”
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