Heeeeeeeeere’s Rodri!!!
The Man City new boy’s early life
Agree with it or not, professional players today have ‘an image’. Those inverted commas are important, and come with an assist from the Daily Mail. Players are overpaid prima donnas who date pop stars and are serial philanderers. They provide heavily-tattooed proof of everything that’s wrong with society, which makes them fair game for the Paparazzi whenever they darken the door of a Poundland or Greggs.
So, when a professional footballer does not fit the Middle England stereotype, it becomes a story. A quick Google of Manchester City new boy Rodri’s name elicits the following factoids: he has no tattoos, no social media accounts, and loves studying so much there’s almost no chance of him remaining in football beyond his playing days.
That’s right, the most important things you can know about City’s club-record €70 million signing, the one player Pep Guardiola wanted above all others, were that he’s never had any ink done, eschews digital echo chambers, and thinks learning stuff is good.
Forget that in buying the 23-year-old former Villarreal and Atletico Madrid midfielder, Pep has acquired the most promising player in his position in the world, an heir to 34-year-old Fernandinho as the linchpin of City’s midfield, not to mention Sergio Busquets for the Spanish national team.
Forget, too, that Rodri has all the attributes to be the modern upgrade on Guardiola himself – a highly technical recycler of possession who can win the ball back and play it simply.
And forget this is the perfect under-the-radar Pep player, who might just have improved the perfect team. Yes, really.
Rodrigo Hernandez Cascante has always loved football, although probably not in the way you would expect.
Born into a family of Atletico Madrid fans in Majadahonda, a satellite city to the north-west of the Spanish capital, Rodri’s childhood hero was not future manager Diego Simeone or the club’s legendary forward Kiko, but Zinedine Zidane of crosstown rivals Real. He even owned a Madrid top with Zizou’s name and number on the back.
Playing out on the streets and with local club Rayo Majadahonda, Rodri quickly realised that what set him apart from his peers wasn’t the outrageous once-in-a-generation skill which set Zidane apart from nearly every other player in history, but an innate ability to understand and interpret the game.
“I was more interested in understanding football than actually playing it,” he recalled. “This sport, and how it works, has fascinated me since I was a kid. I talked about it for so long that my family got sick of me. I could see a player thinking about doing something on the pitch and work out what they’d do. I knew that if I could understand the game, I would have a huge advantage over my opponents, because at that age there aren’t too many tactical concepts.”
Crucially, Rodri had the skill to back up the intuition. One Saturday morning in late 2007,
Atletico Madrid’s academy director Jose Maria Amorrortu asked Alevin A (Under-11s) coach Santi Exposito to watch an exciting talent in a Rayo Majadahonda junior match. The clubs have a long-established relationship since the amateurs’ Estadio Cerro del Espino home was co-opted and expanded into Atletico’s training ground in the late-90s.
“I couldn’t believe how good he was,” said Exposito. “That day, I watched a player with a level way beyond his age. He made such good decisions and also played with his head, which is so rare to see in players at that age group. He had great control, could pass the ball anywhere on the pitch and run with the ball wherever he wanted. He was even good in the air.
“His tactical intelligence was way ahead of any other player at that age. He picked his moments to attack and used his body well to maintain possession. He was everywhere, and I was stunned.”
Offered a month’s trial in Exposito’s Alevin A squad, Rodri travelled to Bilbao to play at the Extebarri tournament in 2007. He’d been playing and training with his team-mates for barely two weeks, and still wasn’t a full-time squad member, but he was a leader.
“From the start of the tournament, he brought the whole dressing room together,” said Exposito. “He adapted from the first moment, his team-mates loved him and he had a great sense of the collective. Just by being there, he improved the team’s quality, and that’s not normal.”
Exposito and Atletico did not hesitate, and Rodri soon established himself as one of the academy’s brightest prospects.
“He was way ahead of the rest,” revealed Fran Alcoy, Rodri’s coach at Infantil B (U12s). The pair spent car journeys discussing tactics and how their side could develop overloads in every area of the pitch.
“He was so clever tactically, almost to the point that it seemed inappropriate to explain something. Tell him something once, and you’d never have to do so again. We always joked that he had the maturity of an adult, constantly asking questions about tactics. There was never any doubt that he had the mentality to reach the top.”
It wasn’t just what was between Rodri’s ears which Alcoy so admired. The prodigy’s feet did as much talking as his brain on the pitch.
“He just ‘had it’ as a kid and has only got better since,” recalled Alcoy. “He dominates positional play. Atletico played with a 4-3-3 throughout the youth sides and he was my pivote in front of the defence, even though he could play a bit further forward if needed. He’s added an extra dimension to his game now and, as time goes on, he will be able to play centre-back as well.
“I still follow his games and you can see the evolution in him. He can receive the ball in any situation and without it has always been very intelligent in his movements, but he has really improved his distribution. He’s much better at starting attacks with more frequency, instead of playing the ball too simply.”
Rodri’s footballing development continued apace, his name appearing alongside Lucas Hernandez, Saul Niguez and Koke as the most promising players across Atleti’s age groups. In 2012, everything changed. Julian Munoz replaced Amorrortu as the academy chief and presided over a significant switch in style, from a possession-based philosophy to something much more direct.
“He’s too small to play as a pivote,” claimed Munoz, taking one look at a 17-year-old Rodri in Armando de la Morena’s Juvenil A (U18s) team. Many, Munoz inevitably among them, dispute that they ever said this about a player who was yet to have a growth spurt and is now 6ft 3in tall.
“We let him leave Atletico because he was a shorty? No chance,” recalls De la Morena. “He was very slender because he hadn’t yet filled out physically, which is normal at that age in the youth teams, but we expected him to grow because of the genetics he had. I don’t remember anyone putting in doubt his potential for any physical reason. We put together a lot of positive reports about him, were very happy with him and wanted him to stay.”
Whatever the truth, Rodri was relegated to Juvenil B and then redeployed as an attacking midfielder. Soon, completely unsuited to his new role, he was dropped. The writing was on the wall, so he headed to the east coast to play for Villarreal.
“I’d always been a normal height, but just hadn’t had my growth spurt,” a philosophical Rodri has said. “If I hadn’t left Atleti, maybe I wouldn’t have turned into the player I am today. At that time, I thought it was best to leave and have a change of scenery. It was the right decision because it helped complete me as a player.”
Villarreal proved the making of him.
“Maybe he lacked a bit of physique, but it wasn’t very long before he grew,” said Pablo Alvarez, Rodri’s best pal and midfield partner in Villarreal’s Juvenil A line-up. Room-mates in the academy, the only time the pair were separated was in the classroom, Alvarez one school year below the new arrival from Madrid. School, training, ping-pong, TV, study. Repeat.
“RODRI IS THE BOMB. AT HIS AGE THERE’S no OTHER FOOTBALLER QUITE LIKE HIM – HE WILL DEFINE An ERA”
“He was a very normal kid, very humble and very switched on,” added Alvarez. “Rodri was always very clear that his life wasn’t just about football. He really wanted to live the life of any normal kid as well.”
These are no idle words, either. After a year, Rodri turned 18 and had to leave Villarreal’s youth team residence. Offered a professional deal, and spot in the club’s reserve side for the 2014-15 campaign, he did what any aspiring footballer would – enrol at the local university.
Not only did he study business management at the Universidad de Castellon – graduating this year – he lived in their halls of residence for the remaining four years he would be with the Yellow Submarine.
“A lot of people freaked out when they saw him on the campus or in our communal areas, especially when he was playiing in Villarreal’s first team,” laughs Valentin Henarejo, Rodri’s best bud at university who was there studying medicine. “After a few days of seeing him on the sofa, everyone got to know him, but it was weird watching him play ping-pong or doing his own laundry.”
There were no delusions of grandeur, though. Valentin recalls how his friend’s smartphone was “half-broken, but he didn’t care” and that he later purchased his first car (a second-hand Opel Corsa) from an old woman shortly after passing his driving test.
“We told him he should buy a better one as the insurance would be really high and that it was a long drive to Madrid from Castellon,” explained Valentin. “He couldn’t understand his team-mates spending a fortune on a car – to him it’s for taking you from A to B.”
Studying was, and still is, Rodri’s main hobby. Some footballers like to play a round of golf, others play Fortnite and FIFA or buy overpriced high-end fashion, but the midfielder prefers learning something new to remain sane. He focused on science for the Spanish equivalent of his A-levels.
“I chose business because I wanted to study something that gave me options later in life and wasn’t too specific,” he revealed. “I’m pretty certain that when I’m finally done with football, I’ll leave the game altogether.
“That’s why I study. I don’t want to dedicate the years I have left in my life, 60 or however many, without having anything to do. Studying actually helps to clear my mind, and I’ll think about other things.
“They were the happiest four years of my life,” he continued. “People ask me, ‘What were you doing there?’ Well, maturing as a person. Footballers live with an incredibly high quality of life, but for others, life is a daily struggle. We know we’re going to live well, and it helped me realise when you have an actual problem, or if it’s just a silly, small thing. It’s all relative.”
Fully relaxed in his uni halls of residence and restored to his preferred position in front of the back four, Rodri’s progress resumed, becoming a regular for the Villarreal reserves team from February 2015. Within a year, the midfielder was a first-team regular and known around the Yellow Submarine camp as ‘apagafuegos’, or ‘firefighter’. He was also called Bruno Xiquet (Little Bruno) because of the similarity in style to their legendary defensive midfielder, now 35 with more than 400 outings to his name.
“He was a reference for me,” Rodri recalled of the player he places alongside Zidane as a hero. “I was lucky to observe not only what he does on the pitch, but also his leadership.”
Now with the physique to dominate as well as recycle possession, he led La Liga charts for interceptions and ball recoveries in 2016-17, and was soon called up into Albert Celades’ Spain Under-21s squad.
“What commands my attention is the way he plays so quickly with both feet, taking the ball away from areas where he’s under a lot of pressure,” enthused Celades. “He does very difficult things with total ease. Just like Sergio Busquets, he’s got the intuition to put himself in exactly the right spot, knowing where he’s going to go to win the ball back.”
Comparisons with Barcelona’s master pivote are nothing new. Speak to any coach, past or present, who’s worked with Rodri for a period of time and Busquets’ name will quickly come up, with many believing that he is the latter’s natural heir for Spain.
“He reminds me of players from the Barça style in front of the defence,” said his Atletico youth coach, Exposito. “I can understand the comparisons with Busquets, but Rodri has got more goals in him than Busi. That makes him the complete pivote.”
Indeed, with Busquets struggling with injury before the 2018 World Cup, it was Rodri who was called up to train with the squad in the former’s stead, so striking are the similarities.
“Rodri is the bomb,” proclaimed one Villarreal executive in 2017. “At his age, there doesn’t exist another footballer quite like him. He will define an era.”
Unfortunately for the Yellow Submarine, that era would not be in Castellon, the pull of his hometown club too strong to ignore as Rodri rejoined Atletico last summer for €20m. The first person he told was university friend Valentin, while heating up a pizza back at their student digs.
“I never thought I would come back here,” admitted Rodri. “I thought that was it for me and Atleti.”
Wearing boss Diego Simeone’s legendary No.14 jersey, many Colchoneros fans hoped Rodri’s return would signify a move to a more possession-based system.
His numbers evolved from being among the very best in La Liga, to leading the way across Europe’s top divisions among his defensive midfield contemporaries: Barça’s Busquets, Real Madrid’s Casemiro, William Carvalho of Real Betis, and Fernandinho, Nemanja Matic, Jorginho and Jordan Henderson of Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool respectively. Last season, Rodri boasted the best passing accuracy (91 per cent), averaged the most
ball recoveries per game (7.3), and was second only to Matic for the number of tackles made.
But those statistics only tell half the story. As the campaign rolled on, rumours started to filter out of Atletico that Simeone and Rodri didn’t always see eye to eye.
The latter wanted to be on the ball more – Rodri averaged significantly fewer passes per game than Jorginho (97) or Busquets (76) in 2018-19 – while the former felt his midfielder had to work harder without the ball, despite his continent-leading figures.
“That’s how we play,” came the reply from several senior Atletico players.
Simeone was no less unbending, particularly on Rodri’s occasional absent-mindedness. The Spaniard frequently arrives for training two or three hours early when given the morning off, or wears a club suit instead of a tracksuit for away matches. Little things, perhaps, but very important things for a coach like El Cholo.
“Hopefully Rodri can improve,” he said. “The small details are the most important, but his potential is enormous. Sergio Busquets is the best Barcelona have at controlling the game, looking for transitions and finding balance. He’s fundamental, and that’s what Rodri has to do for us.”
Atleti supporters, however, have needed no convincing. The local lad became a firm fans’ favourite because of the link he provides to the club’s grass roots, and there was almost a riot when Simeone hauled Rodri off after 70 minutes in a man-of-the-match performance at home to Eibar last September.
Afterwards, daily newspaper El Pais wrote: “The fury was resounding as it was surprising. Never in the Simeone era has a substitution generated such a reaction among supporters. They recognise a footballer different to what they already have who improves the team’s relationship with the ball.”
Simeone, though, is rarely a man for turning. As the season went on, the feeling grew that, while the Colchoneros’ chief didn’t want to lose Rodri, if a giant were to trigger his €70m release clause, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. That Premier League champions Manchester City proved the most determined giant for the midfielder’s signature wasn’t a huge surprise. Fernandinho is 34 and can’t go on forever, and although Ilkay Gundogan impressed at the base of the City midfield during the Brazilian’s injury concerns towards the end of last term, the German has the feel of a temporary fix.
“He had to adapt his game at Atletico,” said Luis Milla, who coached Rodri in Spain’s U19s. “They don’t take the initiative and want to win the ball back and counter-attack quickly. The central midfielder is more tactical. He has to place more attention on where he puts himself on the pitch. Rodri fits perfectly at Manchester City, because Pep Guardiola has an Ajax and Barcelona style and looks for the same idea of play. City have a coach influenced at Barcelona and Rodri has the ability to play that way.”
Guardiola demands bright, adaptable players who eschew modern football’s stereotypical trappings. Rodri, on top of being precisely the type of player the Catalan coach has wanted to add to to his ranks at the Etihad Stadium, has no social media accounts.
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” he revealed of his self-imposed digital blackout. “I’ve never felt that I really needed them. I’ve always been surrounded by people, and prefer getting to know people by face. It doesn’t mean I won’t have them one day in the future. I just don’t want them now.”
Rodri will also be keen to get to work with Guardiola, a coach whose philosophy could hardly be more removed from Simeone’s.
“I was hooked by Guardiola’s football,” he once said of Pep’s stellar Barcelona team that won the Champions League in 2009 and 2011. “That team were winners and innovators. That meant a lot to me as a kid.”
Unveiled as a City player in early July, Rodri was no less excited.
“What they have achieved in the last two years has been amazing – I’m looking forward to being part of such a talented squad,” he said. “It’s not just the titles they have won, but the way they have managed it, playing attacking football at all times.”
Such innovation is what City see in their new recruit, a different way of playing which few footballers can match. When Barça originally signed Javier Mascherano from Liverpool in 2010, it was as a defensive midfielder. The problem was, the Argentine slowed the team down too much because he couldn’t control the ball and pass it on quickly enough. Only Busquets could do that.
“Speed isn’t in your body, it’s in your mind,” said heir apparent Rodri. “The quickest players aren’t those who run the fastest, but those who make sure the ball spends as little time at their feet as possible to give fluidity to the play. Neither Sergio nor me are particularly quick, but we give dynamism to our teams.”
Rodri is a square peg in a square hole, just the sort of player Guardiola has craved in three seasons in England.
“He has proven himself as a hugely talented, young midfielder,” said City director of football Txiki Begiristain. “He works hard defensively, makes himself available to receive the ball and uses it well in possession. We’re confident he will be a success.”
Crucially, the Citizens’ latest No.16 is also a humble and down-to-earth guy who relishes interaction with his coach and the important independent thought.
“If you want something, you have to work for it, but I’ve never changed who I am,” said Rodri. “And, of course, whatever you do, enjoy yourself. If you don’t have fun, you’re wasting your time.”
Oh, we nearly forgot, why doesn’t he have any tattoos? “I think they look ugly.” Short, sharp, to the point – exactly how he plays. It must be music to Guardiola’s ears.
“HE DOES DIFFICULT THINGS WITH TOTAL EASE. JUST LIKE BUSQUETS, HE HAS THE INTUITION TO PUT HIMSELF In EXACTLY THE RIGHT SPOT TO WIN THE BALL BACK”