Rodri: Soccer’s most anticipated return

Rodri is on the training pitch, and that is one of the most resounding headlines that can be published right now on planet soccer. Although an even more powerful one would be: “The best player in the world is back, soccer is celebrating.”

That headline would respond to Pep Guardiola‘s decision to call up the Spanish midfielder for the FA Cup final played Saturday at Wembley between Manchester City and Crystal Palace, and to Rodri’s confidence of playing with Spain in the Nations League finals in Germany (June) and with City in the Club World Cup in the USA (from June 15 to July 13).

But let’s focus on a sunny and hot early April morning in Manchester, where “sunny,” “hot,” and “April” don’t usually go together very well. There you have Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, Rodri to his friends but with Rodrigo on the back of his shirt, running around with a ball on pitch number 8 of the City Football Academy, the club’s pharaonic training center. On the other side of a small road you can see the flying saucer-like mass of the Etihad Stadium where, last September 22, during a City-Arsenal match, the defensive midfielder tore the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus of his right knee after an innocuous challenge with Ghanaian midfielder Thomas Partey. The worst possible injury for a footballer. Rodri underwent surgery five days later in Madrid — performed by Dr. Manuel Leyes, the wizard of knees — and then began a long and hard recovery process that has now come to an end.

“Hi, how are you, how was your trip?” Rodri says warmly as he offers one hand in greeting and repeatedly tosses the ball in the air with the other. His longed-for presence on the turf almost seven months later, running and touching the ball, attracts the attention of a few spectators on the sidelines. One of them, isolated from the rest, pensive and silent, is Guardiola. The City coach is expectant, and with good reason: he knows better than anyone the exact impact of that injury on the disappointing season endured the team owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Such is Rodri’s imprint on the central axis of the City squad, his ability to position himself with overwhelming hierarchy both in front of and behind the midfield line, and in general his influence on the balance of City’s offensive and defensive power, that his absence marked the beginning of a progressive crumbling of the team.

Knocked out by Real Madrid in the last 32 of the Champions League and still battling today to finish in the top five in the Premier League to qualify for next year’s elite continental competition — not doing so would be a sporting and financial catastrophe — the Citizens were left without a compass, without brains and without lungs. It will never cease to be striking in elite soccer the way in which the absence of a player speaks of his indispensable status even more than any of his brilliant performances. That is what has happened this season with Rodri and City.

“The moment the physio and doctor says, ‘Rodri can start to play minutes,’ and after that he will start to play minutes. But the doctors have to tell me. It was a difficult injury, seven to 11 months the doctors said,” Guardiola replied on April 30 when asked by an English journalist about Rodri’s eventual return to the team. “We have to avoid making a step backwards or getting injured again. That’s why you have to be careful.”

On the day that EL PAÍS spent with Rodri in Manchester, and while Guardiola heads for the dressing room as soon as he smells the presence of a journalist, the winner of the last Ballon d’Or is participating in his fourth training session after months of inactivity. It is a light session on the grass, accompanied by a rehabilitation session in the gym, alone and under the watchful eye of the club’s medical directors, the Italian Max Sala and the Spaniard Eduardo Mauri. At the end, from a distance of about 20 meters, Rodri kicks the ball several times to direct it repeatedly and telescopically to Mauri’s chest, which seems a prosaic exercise for an elite footballer and almost miraculous for any poor mortal soccer fan.

A former Espanyol player and current goalkeeper of Rodri’s physical condition, Mauri comments: “The issue is not to rush his return... He’s fine, but my grandfather used to say that failure comes when you want to rush success. Haste is never good.” Rodri nods in agreement, but qualifies: “It’s been a long time coming, it’s about time.”

Another of today’s spectators on the sidelines is Txiki Begiristain. An old fox of soccer, a former left winger for Real Sociedad, Barça, Deportivo and the Spanish national team, former sporting director at Camp Nou and now director of football at Manchester City for the past 13 seasons (he will leave the club at the end of this campaign to take a sabbatical year before embarking on a new direction), he watches the reborn player’s progress without batting an eyelid. And he whispers in the journalist’s ears: “You see. This is the level. Look at his stride, look at his physique. Rodri is so good and so powerful that sometimes, depending on the match, he allows you to have practically only one player in the center of the field, allowing the others to go forward more easily. When what happened happens, and you want to find a replacement for him, you know that you’re going to have to spend a lot of money and that you’re not going to find anyone like him.”

The facts seem to have proven Begiristain right. On October 28, 2024, a Rodri on crutches received the most precious of rewards that can be bestowed on a professional footballer on an individual level at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris: the Ballon d’Or, awarded by France Football magazine through a vote of 100 journalists from all over the world. No other Spanish player had ever been distinguished with this trophy, with the exception of Luis Suárez... in 1960. Behind Rodri came Vinicius Jr., Jude Bellingham and Dani Carvajal. Real Madrid, who took Vinicius’ victory for granted, did not take the news too well and Florentino Pérez ipso facto canceled the club’s trip to Paris. Nor was there an official congratulatory statement for Rodri from a club that has always had the player as one of its priority objects of desire, and even more so now after the void caused by the departure of Toni Kroos.

“Please don’t ask Rodri about Vinicius or Madrid, he’s fed up with the subject and doesn’t even want to hear about it,” pleads a City communications officer before the interview. In November, on SER radio’s soccer program El Larguero, Rodri said: “When Real Madrid, the best club in history and the most successful, calls you, it’s an honor. You always have to pay attention, of course.”

That Ballon d’Or, for Rodri, was an award with a double interpretation: on the one hand it was the culmination of what has been a spectacular career and, at the same time, the entry of that career into another dimension. His record is impressive: with City he has won four Premier League titles, two League Cups, an FA Cup, two Community Shields, a European Super Cup, a Club World Cup and, above all, the Champions League in 2023 — the first for the Citizens — in the final of which he scored the winning goal against Inter. With Atlético Madrid he won the European Super Cup in 2018. And with the Spanish national team, the U19 Euros in 2015, the Nations League in 2023, and the European Championship last year, also winning the tournament’s best player award. Rodrigo’s current market value, according to the specialized website Transfermarkt, is €130 million ($145 million). He has a contract with City until the summer of 2027.

He earns around €14 million ($15.6 million) before tax per year. According to the British newspaper The Sun, the club is willing to go up to €23 million per year if the player extends his contract until 2030.

— Is nothing the same after winning the Ballon d’Or, or is everything the same?

— In what I am, it hasn’t changed me. But in what surrounds me, yes, a lot of things change, it’s inevitable. What makes me proud about this award is what it means. For my country, for my club, for the defensive midfielder position... and, above all, I look at it at home and say to myself: “Hey, this was won every year by Cristiano and Messi! That tells you how much life can surprise you and what you can achieve if you do things the right way. And that’s easy to say! It’s not so easy to do it.

“The defensive midfielder position.” Beyond the usual thanks to his partner, Laura — with whom he lives in Manchester, specifically in the neighboring town of Salford, a stone’s throw from Guardiola — his family, his teammates, his club, the Spain coach, Luis de la Fuente, and UEFA, Rodri’s speech after receiving the Ballon d’Or was a vindication of that position, the defensive midfielder, so often unjustly obscured, when not invisible, in the eyes of the general public. Or midfielder, which is not exactly the same thing... but in Rodri’s words it seems to be the same, since he uses both terms indistinctly to define himself. “Pivot, pivot, I am a pivot,” he says, using the Spanish term for the position. In other words, a kind of gladiator disguised as a footballer who helps defenders and midfielders alike.

And yet, in his emotional speech in Paris, he said: “This is not a victory for me alone, but for Spanish football. Today, many friends have told me that football has won, for giving visibility to so many midfielders who work in the shadows.”

In contrast to the endless and resounding legion of soccer demagogues, opportunists, and the results-oriented, who only like the tinsel that glitters on the surface, Rodri’s critical judgment on the modern evolution of the sport and on his own position is crystal clear: “What has changed most is not the defensive midfield position, but soccer itself. The people behind the ball are becoming more and more important. Before, the important ones were the strikers and the wide midfielders because they were the ones who made the difference, and the others weren’t part of all that. Nowadays, games are won collectively. And from the back. And because they’re won from the back and collectively, now the defensive midfiedler’s role is vital. A defensive midfielder has to be a solid player who thinks before he plays the ball, and who almost always does the same thing, because he is the guide. That’s how [Sergio] Busquets was, my reference: pam, pam, pam, pam, pam, always the same, and always good. And that’s also happening now with a player like Martín Zubimendi, of Real Sociedad, who is very good and has an enormous desire to continue learning. It’s understandable that, for the fans, ours is often a blind task, with no importance either for key defensive actions or for key offensive actions, but I assure you that, for the coaches, it is not like that.”

After training on the pitch and in the gym, now elegantly dressed (“take advantage, I’m looking handsome!”) and sitting in Studio 1 of the City Football Academy, Rodri agrees to go back in time, back to that unfortunate tackle that caused his personal ordeal: “It was a destabilization issue, a strange gesture that rotated my knee and... well, in the end the cruciate ligament is not the most important thing. When six months go by, it’s anchored, sutured, and that’s it, there’s no more mystery. The meniscus is much more important. That’s where the problems start. Although nowadays a lot of progress has been made. Fifteen or 20 years ago it was an ‘I’m retiring’ injury, but today it’s nothing like that.”

Just five days before the injury, and during a press conference at City’s training ground prior to the first Champions League matchday, Rodrigo put his finger on a controversial sore spot: the excessive number of matches for elite players. A controversy that is still raging. Asked about it, and the possibility of a players’ strike as a form of protest against the dictatorship of the calendar, he said that day: “Yeah, I think we are close to that — it is easy to understand. If it keeps this way, there will be a moment where we have no other option. I think we have to take care of ourselves. Someone has to take care of ourselves because we are the main characters of this, let’s say sport or business – whatever you want to call it. I think not everything is money or marketing. It’s also the quality of the show.”

From that stance to interpreting that the absurd funnel of matches may be affecting the health of the players and causing an excess of serious injuries, Rodri is clear: “Any expert will tell you that this is directly related, and that is why they have set the limit of 72 hours [between games]. One thing is clear to me: everything evolves in elite sport, and competitions and their schedules have to evolve as well.”

But as frustration is not incompatible with the vocation of extracting positive lessons even from the deepest well, Rodri’s personal via crucis seems to have acted in a way as an analgesic. “Nobody likes such a long injury... but I’ve surprised myself,” he admits. “I’ve been able to see the life of a footballer from a different perspective: being alone in a dressing room, watching games from the stands, not being part of the team’s dynamic... and paying attention to details that I didn’t pay attention to before.” And a conclusion that, following the soccer jargon, we could call “goal value”: “I think all this has been a kind of test to feel what it might be like the day I retire. I’ve always thought: wow, when I retire you’ll see how wonderful it will be... especially in those long and hard seasons when you end up very tired and stressed. But it turns out that when something like that comes at you all at once, it’s not easy to stop.”

If anything is clear to the former Rayo Majadahonda, Villarreal, and Atlético Madrid player, it is that this enforced break will have a positive influence on his sporting life: “I’m sure that this injury and this break will extend my sporting career, because it will give me an oxygen that I never thought I would have. I’m convinced that, for example, in terms of muscular oxygenation, this will give me much more soccer.”

— You’re 28 years old. As an elite footballer... would you say 28 already, or 28 still?

— What? Ah, well, no, no, 28 still, of course! It’s true that now we’re at a time in soccer when there are so many young players appearing, and there’s such a big age difference with them, that you say

to yourself: “Damn, I’m already old!’ But no way, I think I’m in the best time of my career in terms of age and I still have a very nice second stretch ahead of me.

— The 16, 17, 18-year-olds playing as starters at big clubs is unbelievable. It’s a new phenomenon in elite soccer, unthinkable before?

— You look at yourself and you say to yourself: ‘I’m 10 years older than him! I was in the youth teams when I was his age!’ Those kids burn [career] stages because they are made of different material, but they are exceptions, it’s not the norm. This is not the normal process.

— What do you mean?

— I don’t know who I heard say there are now many kids in soccer who get frustrated because, of course, they see Lamine Yamal and... but Lamine Yamal is not normal. Everyone has their own process. And for me, when I was a kid and I was starting out, I would have liked to have been told about this movie. So now I’m aware of the responsibility I have, and when I talk to very young players I try to tell them that the goal is not to get to the top, the goal is to be the best version of yourself that you can be, and go as far as you can go. If you set a goal of ‘I want to be this player,’ there can be a lot of frustration along the way.

Indeed, the history of soccer is full of potential talents who didn’t make it, or did so fleetingly and then faded away. Rodri is convinced that purely footballing talent is never enough, and he argues as follows: “To reach the top level — which very few reach — you have to have much more talent than the rest, but also certain attributes at the level of the mind that allow you to be consistent and always compete well. And combining all that is very complicated. Many players with very good soccer skills don’t make it to the top. This is a complete package. There are players who arrive on the scene, stay for two years, and then disappear. And others who spend 15 years at the top. Look at Messi, look at Cristiano, look at Xavi, look at [Andrés] Iniesta, look at Busquets: they are beasts on a physical level, beasts on a talent level, and beasts on a mental level.”

The best player in the world believes that “a lot of progress has been made” in mental health issues in soccer and in elite sport in general, but also that “there is still a long, long way to go.”

Rodri doesn’t have social networks (“it’s not my thing”), or tattoos, or piercings, or a hairstyle similar to a raccoon, or an exclusive Maserati model like some of those visible in the City training ground’s parking lot, nor does he wear $500 T-shirts or $1,000 ripped jeans. On the other hand, he does have a degree in business administration and management from the public University Jaume I of Castellón. He began to study for it when he played for Villarreal (2015-2018) and finished the course after signing for Manchester City, where arrived from Atletico Madrid in July 2019 for €70 million ($78.3 million). Already a soccer star based in Manchester, Rodri kept going back to Castellón to take his exams. When he is a footballer he wears his shirt tucked well inside his shorts — a rarity — and when he is in civilian clothes, as now on the terrace of the exclusive Dakota Hotel, which he frequents, he wears chinos, casual boots, and a sand-colored jersey. He’s what you might call a regular guy and an old-fashioned footballer. And of course, for him, soccer is not just about playing soccer, but also a potential educational and awareness-raising tool for youngsters.

Part of his time is dedicated to the organization Football Beyond Borders, which cares for young people at risk of social exclusion through sports, and also carries out similar work in Mexico, creating

sports fields and street sports activities to get kids out of the world of drugs and crime. “Famous athletes have a responsibility. As public figures, we have to demonstrate certain values. People associate an athlete with values. So it’s important to know how to behave on and off the field,” he says.

— Doesn’t all the talk about you get tiring? That of “model footballer,” “example for all,” even “soccer hero”?

— Of course. Let’s see, there are two parts to it. One fills you with pride when you are stopped in the street and a woman says “thank you” because her son has seen you on TV talking about I don’t know what... and the other part is the exaggeration; it seems that you are superhuman and you do everything well. Well, no.

— Is the pleasure of playing soccer intact?

— Well, what do you understand as pleasure?

— To enjoy training and playing. To enjoy what you do.

— No, I don’t always like what I do, of course. I don’t wake up every day and say: “Damn, that’s cool, playing soccer!’ I’m lucky and I know that, but this profession has tough moments and very fucked up moments. And days when you don’t want to get up to go train. Especially when you get into that dynamic of playing, playing, and playing... and you also have to win, win, and win. I have known and I know teammates who don’t enjoy that, and it’s logical, because there are times when it’s crazy. And it can burn you out. And there are people who go crazy.

— Do you play soccer as it is?

— I don’t know about others, but I do. I think it’s fundamental. There are very good players who insult opponents, who provoke, who complain from the second minute, who throw themselves around... and I can’t conceive of that. I am the way I am on the pitch, and the ambition I have in my life is the same ambition I have during a match. But you can see that there are other players for who that isn’t the case. And I won’t name names.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition