Rodri: No need for City to panic
WHEN Rodrigo Hernandez left Atletico Madrid to join up with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City last summer, some in Spain said he was leaving to escape the intensity of Diego Simeone.
‘People said, “You will be able to rest there”,’ he says. ‘I’ve told them nothing could be further from the truth!’
He told Spanish reporters last week: ‘ I finish games at City feeling dead,’ and he reiterates the point to Sportsmail at Spain’s training camp here in Madrid this week. ‘If you are constantly taking the initiative in games, as we do, then you have to be constantly moving.
‘When you lose the ball, you have to press like crazy to win it back. The physical demands are huge.’
Rodri was here helping Spain achieve Euro 2020 qualification — he played 90 minutes in Tuesday’s draw with Sweden that sent Spain through — but City’s defeat by Wolves before the international break and today’s game against Crystal Palace are not far from his thoughts.
‘We can’t be beating Watford 8-0 and then losing the next game,’ he says. ‘That’s pointless.’
Playing for Guardiola in the Premier League was always going to be a test, both physically and mentally. The imposing athlete, laughably once considered too small as a kid at Atletico Madrid, can handle the former. And as a great student of the game — in every sense of the phrase — he can deal with the latter.
Rodri was talking tactics when he was 12. His first youth team coach, Fran Alcoy, tells the story of the schoolboy footballer he used to see waiting at the bus stop outside Atletico’s training ground.
Alcoy would give him a lift home and the two would chat about the formation the team were playing and where on the pitch they could find a numerical superiority over the opposition, depending on where they pressed — fundamental Guardiola concepts.
‘It was like talking to another coach instead of a kid,’ Alcoy has said. ‘I have great memories of Alcoy,’ says Rodri. ‘He was the first coach to put me in that defensive midfield position and show me how to play the role.
‘As for the way I saw football, I had always enjoyed watching the game and it’s true I always found it quite easy when a team was successful to see why that was.
‘I could see how they were creating the space. I could read the game. Then, of course, it’s not so easy to translate that to your own performances out on the pitch.’
He did put theory into practice, even if it meant ignoring his dad’s advice. ‘He was a big football fan but he always went against a lot of what I thought and did,’ laughs Rodri. ‘He would ask me to be a bit more greedy, to dribble more, to shoot more and score more.
‘I had to say, “No, Papa, this is what I am good at”. Time has proved me right, but the role of your parents and the people who help you start off on the road is vital. I know a lot of players who were very good and got left behind because they didn’t have people to support them.’
It was Rodri’s parents who suggested he take a university degree just in case the football didn’t work out. He has almost completed his business degree.
‘I always thought that studying would help me,’ he says. ‘Both in terms of if I needed to have another profession one day, but also as a healthy distraction.
‘To be a footballer you have to be dedicated to it 24 hours a day, but you have to clear your head a bit from time to time. If you lose a game and you go home and think continually about the defeat and don’t occupy your mind with anything else, perhaps you will pay for that in the next game.’
Footballers, he says, ‘live in a sort of bubble. We can forget that we are lucky enough to be doing something we really enjoy’.
When he was 18 at Villarreal’s academy, he moved into halls of residence with fellow business students at Castellon University. It was another attempt to keep his life as normal as possible.
‘It was one of the best decisions I have taken in my career,’ he says.
‘When you are 18 you can’t live at the club’s academy any more so most players look for a flat with a team-mate. I thought I’d give student residence a try. I was surrounded by people my own age, I met people from all over and I met my girlfriend there.’ Surely student nightlife was not right for a healthy young footballer? ‘That’s why I say it was the best environment in the world!’ he laughs.
‘I would go out for dinner and a drink with them, but obviously I didn’t do the after-hours stuff. I was the lame guy who went home early. People never understood it.
‘Then when I started in the Villarreal first team, they began to understand a bit more.’
It is the football intelligence of Rodri (right) that has drawn Guardiola to the 23-year-old.
‘The best players are the most intelligent ones,’ he says. ‘Players that know how to think and to analyse what is happening.
‘Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are very intelligent and that helps put them above everyone else.’
He believes the emphasis on City’s thrilling forward play can sometimes lead to an underplaying of their intelligence, especially in a defensive sense. ‘We have been characterised as the team that is constantly attacking, not allowing the other side to get out, and that is a virtue,’ he says. ‘But you also need to have a team that thinks quickly from the back to the front. We work tremendously hard on the defensive side of things even though people might not think so. ‘Trying to make sure the opposition’s counter-attacks don’t hurt us, being vigilant and covering. We have to know what to do when we don’t have the ball. We are better when we can rob the ball in the opposition’s half, when we press.’ Rodri knows his own margin for error on the pitch is small because of the position he plays. And on the subject of small margin for error, City play Liverpool next month and already Jurgen Klopp’s side have an eight-point advantage. ‘We have not started the best way possible, but we know the difficulties that we have right now with injuries and we know that the season is very long,’ he says. ‘ I have touched down in England, and found myself up against
‘Liverpool are one of the best teams I’ve seen... but all teams have bad moments’
one of the best teams I have seen in recent years (Liverpool). They are strong, and not just on the counter-attack. They can dominate games and they can score from set-plays.
‘But all teams have their bad moment of the season and we have to be there. It’s not waiting for our opponent to fail, but making sure we get things right.’
He says Guardiola has remained serene despite the points lost.
‘Nobody likes to lose, but he knows how to maintain calm and he knows how to lift the group, because in the end it doesn’t serve any purpose to complain and kill the team. But he will work on what we have to improve. He is not going to settle for losing games. We have to win.’
The admiration for Guardiola is obvious — and the admiration is mutual. Pep revelled in his £62.8million record signing’s selfsacrificing lack of profile earlier in the season. Guardiola said: ‘He has no tattoos, no earrings. He even has holding midfielder’s hair.’
Rodri may be the brightest in the class but with a last answer he passes on the chance to be teacher’s pet. Would you have gone to City if Pep was not there? ‘Ha! I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I am not there just because the boss is there. I’m there for what I can bring. The team has won a lot in recent years and still has a lot left to win.’