Dario Sarmiento: Things to know about Manchester City’s new wonderkid

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Manchester City love snapping up young players, and the latest through the door is Estudiantes winger Dario Sarmiento.

The 18-year-old has agreed to join the club in a deal worth up to £10m, which shows you just how highly City value him. They believe he’s going to be a star.

Here’s all you need to know about him.

Lionel MessiLionel Messi
Sarmiento is regularly compared to Messi | Eric Alonso/Getty Images

Comparisons between Sarmiento and Lionel Messi are pretty self-explanatory.

This is a young, Argentinian right winger who favours his left foot and stands at just 5’5. Physically, it makes a whole lot of sense.

The comparisons extend to his playstyle as well. Sarmiento uses his low centre of gravity to weave his way past opponents with frightening ease, relying more on agility than trickery to beat his man. He’s one of those players that just makes things happen.

Brought up as a central midfielder, it was quickly obvious that Sarmiento needed to be moved to the wing. At 5’5, he’s not exactly built for the position, but playing so deep would waste his talents in attack.

Despite his limited exposure in the Argentinian league, Sarmiento has posted some incredible dribbling statistics. Fans have gone wild for just how exciting and forward-thinking he is on the pitch.

He’s not as good as Messi, but few players come as close to matching his style of play as Sarmiento does.

In what is surely the least surprising thing you have ever heard, Sarmiento grew up idolising Messi.

He confessed to TNT Sports that he has spent a lot of time watching the Barcelona man, but some of his fondest memories actually come from former Estudiantes man Gata Fernandez.

Fernandez called time on his playing career in 2020, so Sarmiento’s focus is now solely on Messi.

Juan Sebastian VeronJuan Sebastian Veron
Veron values Sarmiento highly | Marcos Brindicci/Getty Images

Estudiantes chairman Juan Sebastian Veron has never shied away from heaping praise on Sarmiento.

„He has incredible improvement margins. To me, he has quality,“ Veron told Stats Perform News. „Now a lot of clubs look for this kind of player, who runs on the flank. It is so easy for him to dribble his marker – not something so easy to see these days.

„He is fast, agile, nice left foot and great at dribbling, but he is still a project of a player. Will he become a great player? It depends a lot on him and on what team he will join to carry on his development. A lot of it is up to him.“

To many at Estudiantes, the late Alejandro Sabella is seen as an icon. Everything he did was the stuff of legend, so when he chose to kneel in the presence of Sarmiento, Argentina took notice.

Remembering the gesture, Sarmiento told ESPN: “He came and asked me if I was Sarmiento, I said yes and he knelt down. He said I was going to be a star, but I need to be calm and live in the present.”

For a player with so many tricks up their sleeve, Sarmiento has been accused of being a little one-dimensional at times.

A big flaw in his game is Sarmiento’s reliance on his left foot. When forced onto his right, the youngster becomes a mere mortal again… but getting him away from his left is a near-impossible task.

Sarmiento also needs to work on his end product, and his return of no goals and one assist in 21 appearances at the time of the confirmation of the City move tells you everything you need to know.

Sarmiento has a bright future, but he came close to giving it up on a number of occasions when he was just a child.

A nasty arm injury in 2017 nearly robbed Sarmiento of his love of football, and he confessed to Inferiores Platenses that problems at school and the death of his grandfather left him so depressed that he could not play football.

He spent time working with a psychologist to overcome his issues, and as his form picked up on the pitch, he started to fall back in love with the game.

To his friends, Sarmiento goes by ‚Dari‘, but that’s just one of the names you’ll see him called in Argentina.

The name ‚El Zurdo‘ is thrown in his direction a lot, which sounds a lot cooler than it is. Literally translated, it’s ‚The Left-Footer‘, which is sometimes shortened to ‚Lefty‘.

Sabella, however, likes to call him ‚Hallelujah‘, saying (via The Guardian): “He fills me with hope for his future and for all of us who love the club so much.“

Despite struggling at school, Sarmiento has seen his love of education blossom thanks to the words of Veron, who warns all the club’s youngsters that they will not play for the club if they give up on their studies.

„Before I did not give importance to the school, now I realise that it is useful and that in the future it will serve me,“ he told the club’s official website.

Estudiantes believe that smart minds create smart players, and Sarmiento is a perfect example of that.

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