8 Fantastic Facts About Manchester City's Sergio Aguero

Sergio Aguero commanded the headlines after scoring a stunning hat-trick for Manchester City against Bayern Munich on Tuesday. Here, Press Association Sport shares eight interesting facts about a player rated among the best in the world.

1. Aguero is known widely by his nickname ‘Kun’, a moniker that has stuck since childhood. It comes from his resemblance to a character in a Japanese cartoon programme that he enjoyed as a boy, which was actually called ‘Kum Kum the little caveman’. The cartoon was set in the Stone Age and was about a mischievous little boy.

2. Aguero’s mother had a far from straightforward pregnancy with him. When the then teenager Adriana Aguero was six months pregnant, the small house she shared with partner Leonel del Castillo and daughter Jessica in the impoverished Gonzalez Catan district of Buenos Aires was severely flooded. They were forced to evacuate, wading out into metre-deep water. They spent a fortnight sleeping on mattresses at a school before returning home.

3. Aguero’s full name is Sergio Leonel Aguero. He was initially given his mother’s surname because both she, at 18, and partner Leo, 19, were classed as minors and were not married. This could have been changed to the paternal surname of Del Castillo, as was the intention, years later. However, the family could not produce national identity documents as they had been destroyed in the floods.

4. His parents had also wanted to spell his middle name as ‘Lionel’, but were forbidden by civil registry restrictions in their part of the country. Lionel was not on approved list of names. This was legislation not enforced in Rosario, where one of Aguero’s great contemporaries was born to parents Jorge and Celia Messi.

5. Aguero’s father Leo was also a talented goalscorer and showed promise in his youth. Although he never went on to play fully professionally, he was able to supplement his meagre income as a baker by playing for local sides in weekend tournaments.

6. Aguero began his professional football career in July 2003 when, aged just 15 years and 13 days, he made his debut for Independiente. He was the youngest debutant in Argentina’s top flight, beating the record of the man who would later become his father-in-law, Diego Maradona. His first senior goal came against Estudiantes in November 2004.

7. Aguero won the Under-20 World Cup with Argentina in Holland in 2005 and enjoyed repeat success in Canada two years later, when he won both the tournament’s Golden Boot and Golden Ball awards after scoring six goals in seven games.

8. Aguero became an Atletico Madrid player after moving to Spain in the summer of 2006 and a full international, having been capped by Argentina in a game against Brazil in September 2006. As a teenager in Argentina he attracted the interest of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid, but Independiente’s asking price for the then 17-year-old was off-putting. He moved to Atletico for £19million. He won the Europa League with them in 2010 before joining Manchester City for £38million in 2011.