On loop

So what would you do while enjoying a bit of downtime after scoring the winning goal in a Champions League final to clinch the trophy your club has craved for so long? Watch it again of course, says Manchester City’s match-winner Rodri. And again. And again. And again…

INTERVIEW Adika-Paul Campbell | WORDS Chris Burke | PORTRAITS Tom Flathers

Interview

Chances are that Rodri is watching it again right now. And who could blame him if he is? You know the moment, of course, even if you’re lagging behind the Manchester City midfielder by a few thousand YouTube clicks. Like countless City fans, Rodri spent a good part of his summer reliving that goal, his thumping finish against Inter which brought the club their first European title back in June, also completing a historic treble. It secured his place in the marbled halls of football immortality – and yet, with the swing of a boot, the whole thing was over in a flash. Hence the temptation to keep hammering that ‘Play’ button.

“I think I’ve watched that goal, the celebration, the reaction of my team-mates about 5,000 times,” Rodri admits. And it’s safe to assume his view count won’t stop there – not when rewatching the scene is the closest he can come to travelling back in time for another raw hit of dopamine. “It was a magical and special moment. That moment lasts less than a second. You start sprinting and it lasts no more than two or three seconds.”

Fortunately for the rest of us, Rodri’s viewing habits have made him a world-class authority on his own glorious strike. If he didn’t already have a degree in Management and Business Administration, it would be easy to picture him as an Oxbridge undergrad specialising in the 2023 Champions League final – and who better to conjure up that night in Istanbul and the moment which took City to the summit of Europe?

“The goal came in the 68th minute,” he begins, unsurprisingly right on the money. “It came after a play where we’d had possession for a long time, with the ball moving through different areas. It was a through ball into space from Jack Grealish, which İlkay Gündoğan got to, close to the byline. The ball went back to Phil Foden. It seemed the move had ended there because the ball then went back to Manuel Akanji, a central defender. I think the key to the goal was precisely that: moving the ball backwards for Inter’s defence to jump forward.

“At that moment, Akanji carries the ball forward to grab the attention of one of their players, and that’s when Inter committed one of their few mistakes in the whole match. One of their centre-backs came out to pressure him, which left space in behind for Bernardo Silva to run into, and that’s when Manu Akanji played the through ball. To be honest, I’d barely been involved in the move because I was being marked and the ball was being played on the wings.”

“When I saw the ball go in, it was just an explosion of happiness. It was a Euphoric moment for the whole team”

Here, it’s difficult not to interject and note Rodri’s tactical nous. The 27-year-old clearly has an analytical mind, as if that were not already obvious from the way he plays – always reading the game, always knowing how and where to intervene to stifle the opposition and then which pass to select as City get moving again. In that, there are echoes of Pep Guardiola, himself an astute and elegant holding midfielder in his playing pomp. No wonder the City manager is a massive fan, having given him more minutes on the pitch last season than any other player, including goalkeeper Ederson. Anyway, sorry Rodri. Back to you…

“When the pass went through to Bernardo, I wasn’t expecting to shoot. I was expecting a cross for our striker or our wingers who were arriving in the box. When I saw the cross was a strong one, and that it rebounded off an Inter centre-back, I saw the ball was coming towards me at pace. During that second or millisecond when I start to move towards it, I see a space open up due to their centre-back leaving his position. They had gone very deep, which left the edge of the box free, and the ball dropped to me.

“I first thought of striking the ball hard because that’s how I usually shoot, but I analysed how many players there were inside the box – and there were many – so striking the ball hard was not the best option. It was at the very last moment when I chose to place my shot, even though I knew it would be difficult. In the end, I decided to put some swerve on the finish because there were many players defending the goal.”

Swerve or not, it was still an emphatic effort, the force of the strike lifting the net off the grass and leaving Inter goalkeeper André Onana unable to react, aside from a swivel of the head as if he were watching a serve at Wimbledon. “When I saw the ball go in, it was just an explosion of happiness,” adds Rodri. “It was a euphoric moment for the whole team. When you score such an important goal, you all feel that relief, that happiness, but it was also contained as we knew there were still 20 minutes left to see the match through.

“I felt exhausted after the celebration, after sprinting away. However, at that moment, you think you’ve just scored a very important goal. We knew how difficult it was to win that final, but you felt a step closer to victory. We just had to keep believing. That’s what I thought at that moment. I obviously enjoyed celebrating that joyous moment with my team-mates, with our fans – that explosion of happiness. It was a mix of all these emotions; so, on the one hand, I was delighted but, on the other hand, I had to keep calm as there was still time left.”

“To be lucky enough to score that goal fills me with pride and, above all, joy for all the City fans who had been waiting for this for so long”

Rodri is all smiles with the trophy having scored the only goal of the final

City’s name is now safely engraved on the trophy, yet it’s easy to forget how thoroughly they were tested in Istanbul. Huge favourites before the game, not least due to their swaggering semi-final demolition of Real Madrid, the Premier League champions struggled to find their rhythm. Rodri himself had to admit he “wasn’t good” in the first half as Inter paid him close attention, and Guardiola felt the need to lift his spirits at half-time, telling him he is “the best midfielder in Europe by some distance”.

“A final is always tough to play in and, evidently, they had studied us in depth,” says Rodri. “They were one of the best teams we faced in our Champions League campaign – probably our toughest match. In any case, we did struggle at the start of the first half. In the second half, the team improved a lot: we had more chances and, above all, we played more of our football. We were more comfortable. In the first half, we were not expecting them to pressure us so far up the pitch, to man-mark us, so we struggled to find a free man. In the second half, after the manager’s half-time team talk and clearing up some concepts, everything was clearer. After that, the final was decided by a small detail.”

A “small detail” is a curious way of describing a goal you have been watching on repeat, but it is thoroughly in keeping with Rodri’s character. This, after all, is a man who lived with his fellow students in university accommodation back when he was already playing in the Spanish top flight for Villarreal. A man, too, who bought a second-hand Opel Corsa hatchback soon after acquiring his driving licence, reputedly telling friends that his team-mates were “crazy” to splash out on fancy cars just to get from A to B.

That same humble attitude quickly impressed the City staff when he joined in 2019, his eagerness to listen and learn setting him on a path to flourish after two seasons of gradual adaptation. Far from the stereotype of the modern footballer, Rodri has zero interest in social media, flashy clothes or extravagant tattoos, living his life much like he plays the game – content to work in the shadows, never chasing the limelight. And even if the limelight is hard to avoid when you score the winning goal in a Champions League final, it’s typical of Rodri that he shifts the praise to his City colleagues for holding firm during those tense last 20 minutes against Inter.

“Those moments in a final are meant for important players to shine. For example, Ederson and the save he made [from Romelu Lukaku], and also Rúben Dias and his header to clear the ball following Ederson’s save. During those moments, you’re focused on defending and just hoping the opposition don’t score. They did have plenty of chances, but our team stayed strong and united to resist.”

Armchair psychology time, but perhaps his humility has something to do with the setbacks Rodri has endured. Although he ended the Champions League final named as both Player of the Match and the competition’s Player of the Season, those personal accolades must have seemed impossible a decade ago – and, more specifically, the day he was released by Atlético de Madrid in 2013 for a perceived lack of physical power. Rodri dusted himself down and clawed his way into the game at Villarreal, eventually proving Atlético so wrong they snapped him back up in 2018, but even after City came calling a year later, there were obstacles to overcome.

The Spanish international was signed as an understudy to club legend Fernandinho, yet when City reached their first Champions League final in 2021, Guardiola left both men out of his starting XI. Instead, he positioned İlkay Gündoğan at the base of midfield in Porto, a surprise decision that many felt played into the outcome, a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Chelsea. Asked about that call before this year’s decider, even Guardiola suggested it may have been a mistake. “Would I do something different now?” he mused. “Maybe, but that doesn’t count.”

Tellingly, he did do something different in Istanbul – another dose of vindication for Rodri, who had to spend that entire 2021 final on the bench after starting nine of City’s previous 12 Champions League games. “It was a very sad day. But I think we learned a lot from those kinds of moments. We would have loved to win, but what we learned from losing pushed us to keep believing we could win.

“To win such competitions, you need to have lost finals and been knocked out in semi-finals. That day, I didn’t get onto the pitch and I had to experience a tough moment with my team-mates. But football rewards you for going through those moments with another final in which I was named Player of the Match and scored the winning goal. Obviously, I’m very happy and, on top of everything, I’m grateful for those moments, which life has given me because of the effort and hard work I’ve put in over all this time.”

Add that to the list of reasons why Rodri can’t stop watching his goal – not just the sense of his future standing being defined by a fleeting moment, but also his entire past leading up to a single swipe of the ball. And here’s another reason too: he simply doesn’t bang them in very often. In the lead-up to the final, he was low down anyone’s pecking order of predicted scorers. Instead, all eyes were on Erling Haaland, whose 12 goals during City’s run to Istanbul marked him out as the ultimate danger man.

True, Rodri had struck against Bayern during the quarter-finals, but that had been his first goal in UEFA club competition since a Europa League effort for Villarreal in 2016. And although he idolised Zinédine Zidane as a youngster, his qualities closer to his own goal are what most entice his managers – including Luis Enrique, who deployed Rodri at centre-back during all of Spain’s matches at the 2022 World Cup.

After all, the secret to Rodri’s importance lies in a different set of statistics. These are the figures that tell the hidden story of how games are won, the kind of evidence that Holmes and Watson would pursue while Inspector Lestrade is off investigating tap-ins. Try this lot for size, the City No16 having ended the Champions League campaign as the player with the most touches of the ball (1,120), the most ball recoveries (105) and the most completed passes (910). Even in the showpiece itself, he topped the charts for most interceptions and most passes into the final third.

And yet, and yet… the videos don’t lie, nor do the match reports, the record books or the memories of millions of people who saw it happen. Manchester City are European champions because Rodri found the back of the net at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium and no one else did. “Obviously, it’s hugely important for me that I scored this goal, the most important in the club’s history – a club which had been waiting for this for so long. To be lucky enough to score that goal fills me with pride and, above all, with joy for all the City fans who’d been waiting for this for so long.”

True to form, those supporters were on his mind at the final whistle too. “We started screaming and I remember we all started running in the same direction – towards the opposition box, near where our fans were. I started running towards them directly. I couldn’t believe it had happened. I think BT Sport has a video in which everyone rushes onto the field. The first thing I do is look at Grealish and scream while running.

“Afterwards, I just threw myself on the ground because, other than excitement, I felt exhausted. I threw myself on the ground, placed my hands on my head and started crying because it was a dream come true. After such a long time and so many – I wouldn’t say failures because football is about trying – struggles to get there, once you finally do and win, the tension melts away from your body and pure emotion is released.”

Pure emotion, and no doubt a surge of adrenaline and the strange feeling of being at a crossroads in time, the meeting point where a long journey is completed and an enduring legacy is launched. History and future colliding like atoms, while the intensely personal mixes with the shared experience of a club and its fans. That’s a lot to process for anyone sprawled out on the grass one warm June night in Istanbul.

Just as well, then, for the next best thing. So, Rodri, ready to watch it again?

“When I saw the ball go in, it was just an explosion of happiness. It was a Euphoric moment for the whole team”

Read the full story

Sign up now to get access to this and every premium feature on Champions Journal. You will also get access to member-only competitions and offers. And you get all of that completely free!

“To be lucky enough to score that goal fills me with pride and, above all, joy for all the City fans who had been waiting for this for so long”

Rodri is all smiles with the trophy having scored the only goal of the final

Just as well, then, for the next best thing. So, Rodri, ready to watch it again?

“When I saw the ball go in, it was just an explosion of happiness. It was a Euphoric moment for the whole team”

“To be lucky enough to score that goal fills me with pride and, above all, joy for all the City fans who had been waiting for this for so long”

Rodri is all smiles with the trophy having scored the only goal of the final

Just as well, then, for the next best thing. So, Rodri, ready to watch it again?

Insight

Learning curve

Rodri is far from your typical footballer, and here he tells Simon Hart how his student days at the Universidad de Castello helped him in more ways than one

“My studies have always been the priority in my life because obviously when you’re a child there are no guarantees. My parents gave me a lesson in maturity and taught me that my studies needed to be my main focus and football my hobby. Because ultimately you never know whether you’re going to be able to make a living out of football.

“When you reach the top level and start to see that you can make a living from it, it takes priority. However, my studies have always been the priority because you never know whether you’re going to make football your livelihood. It’s always good to have something else there.

“I started my degree at 18, when I was still playing for the Villarreal Juvenil team. I hadn’t made my first-team debut at that stage and still didn’t know… Given that I’d started it, I wanted to go on and finish it.

“I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. Going somewhere where you get to meet so many people from different parts of the country, you get to see the reality of your everyday life, you’re there with lads that are the same age as you and they obviously have a different way of life. You live a very professional and strict lifestyle that’s really demanding.

“That helped to never lose that perspective on life and lose sight of values. It saw me always keep my feet on the ground and, above all, to take everything in my stride. It doesn’t matter that I’m a professional footballer, or whether you work in another field, at the end of the day, you’re just like them.

“That helped to give me an escape route from the world of football on a mental level from time to time, and to seek the support of normal people, just like me. I still have friends from those years because it was an important time for me. It was a major experience and, above all, an enriching one. It allowed me to meet a lot of people. I lived alone and it gave me experiences of worlds other than just the footballing one.”

Insight

Learning curve

Rodri is far from your typical footballer, and here he tells Simon Hart how his student days at the Universidad de Castello helped him in more ways than one

Insight

Learning curve

Rodri is far from your typical footballer, and here he tells Simon Hart how his student days at the Universidad de Castello helped him in more ways than one