When Josep Guardiola spoke about Rodri earlier this year, it’s safe to say he didn’t expect this. “If only the holding midfielder had started to get the recognition of Erling Haaland and Kevin… [De Bruyne]Then there will be problems,” Guardiola said. sky sports.
“The holding midfielder should never be in the highlights. The holding midfielder has to think for the rest of the team and not expect to be appreciated. Without him we We couldn’t accomplish what we did. But the highlight has to belong to the others. ”
It also reminds me of the conversation I had with Bernardo Silva in the summer. A consummate team man himself, he hinted at his disdain for these individual trinkets. Trent Alexander-Arnold claims that the Ballon d’Or is the award he covets most, but for him it is not.
“I give these awards the importance they deserve,” he said. sky sportshis views leave little doubt. “We play a team sport, but the individual award is always given to the striker because they have the finishing touch,” he added.
“But if you understand the game, people involved in the game, whether they’re players or managers, you know how important it is to have the right goalkeeper, the right defender, the right midfielder and the right striker. You know what. just A proper striker. Not only strikers can win titles.
“Look at the teams that won titles. The base comes from very good defense. If you defend well, your offense will be better. So when you look at the individual awards, only the players who score goals When I see them winning, I kind of think, ‘That doesn’t describe our sport very well. ”
Still, here we are. Rhodri. Ballon d’Or winner. In fact, he was arguably even better last season, helping Manchester City win a historic treble and scoring the winning goal in the Champions League final. But glory in Spain changed everything.
I feel that being named Euro 2024 Player of the Year is part of a belated realization that he is a man who has a responsibility to play for the best teams, both at club and international level. Goals still command our attention. But Rodri is too much to ignore.
If you imagine City in possession, Rodri flits the ball from side to side, rarely more than a few passes away before the ball returns to its proper place at his feet. He recorded over 4,000 touches in the Premier League last season. That was a record.
His metronomic use of the ball makes the game look easy. it’s not. He receives passes under so much pressure that a lesser player would be horrified to be expected to do anything about it. He let go of the marker, slumped his shoulders and walked away.
There are numbers for everything in the world of football these days, and some of them help articulate what is visible. Last season, Rodri completed 2,068 passes under pressure, 500 more than the next player on the list. He works in a small space.
Still, he rarely gives up the ball. By tracking data, you can calculate the difficulty of passes a player attempts based on the opponent’s position. Rodri’s passes may seem simple, but with so many passes, he must lose them often.
Instead, the data shows that of the 119 players who completed at least 1,000 passes in the Premier League last season, Rodri had the highest pass success rate. On top of that The expected value of these passes was 6.79 percentage points higher.
His death is more ambitious than it seems. He ranks among the top five players in the Premier League for line-breaking passes. Alongside playmaker Martin Odegaard and risk-taker Bruno Fernandes, there was the probing Rodri.
And he worked in a special dimension for everyone else. It may seem like just a stylistic quirk that he chips passes far more than any other player, but it’s pretty obvious. Rodri can go in the middle or up. All clubs in the bag.
Rodri’s chipped pass is a hallmark of his game at Manchester City
For those who prefer statistics with a little more bottom line, he also scored eight goals and provided nine assists in City’s Premier League title-winning campaign. There were only five players in the competition who outperformed him in both respects, and all of them were forwards.
Of course, Rodri brings more than that. More and more. No Premier League player has held the ball longer in the center of the pitch and his ability to thwart counter-attacks may help explain why City were so alarmed when he suffered a serious injury.
Rodri won more possession in the middle third last season than any other player.
“Internally, all his teammates and staff know what an important and decisive player he is,” Guardiola said. “He’s a very important player for us. We’re a better team with him, no doubt about it. He’s irreplaceable right now, considering he’s helped us a lot. You could say it exists.”
It seemed that way for a while. City lost the six games they played against Premier League opponents without Rodri last season, all but Luton. They were unbeaten in 49 games with him until he was denied the double in the FA Cup final.
What followed was a special summer with Spain, but the award was bittersweet in that he arrived injured. A banner reading “Can we talk about Rodri?” was unveiled at the Etihad Stadium during a game against Inter in September. Four days later, my leg broke.
But now he’s back in the spotlight. His manager and team-mates could only smile when the holding midfielder, who was supposed to thrive in the shadows, won an award perhaps reserved for players in the laurels. Finally, the soccer world is buzzing about Rodri.
