SOCCER
The incredible fact about Manchester City star Rodri that made him so good
The Spain midfielder tells The Players’ Tribune about his journey from university student to Champions League winner and Ballon d’Or contender.
“When you win for your country, it is a different kind of emotion,” Manchester City’s Spanish midfielder Rodri writes in The Players’ Tribune. The former Atlético Madrid player won the Champions League with the Premier League champions in 2023, but his Euro 2024 victory with Spain hit differently.
“I was taken back to my roots, when I was playing in the pool, then playing in the garden, then back in the pool again. When I was taking my bike onto the tram to go to training. When I was running around the woods in Connecticut crying tears of joy when we won the World Cup [in 2010].
This summer, the 28-year-old fulfilled one of the lifetime dreams by winning the European Championship with Spain. As he explains, “you realize that you have not just made a city happy, but an entire country. So many different people. So many different generations. A whole new generation, experiencing that joy for the first time. How many of those kids ran around like crazy the night that Lamine scored against France? Or when Mikel scored against England? Thousands. Millions.”
Rodri Hernández: Manchester City’s “normal” superstar
Winning Euro 2024 was just the latest in a long line of sporting successes for a player who is considered by many to be one of the best in the world. Some would even claim he is the best. However, the four-time Premier League champion with Pep Guardiola’s City says other players make fun of him for how “normal” he is.
“If you asked my wife or even my mother, they would say that I am the furthest thing from normal. When it comes to football, I am an addict. If I am normal it is probably in the sense that I don’t care about social media or £400 trainers. Since I was a kid, I have simply been chasing a feeling.
“I didn’t say, ‘Oh, I want to be a footballer so I can have a Ferrari.’ No, it was because what my heroes did on the pitch made me feel alive.
“By the age of 10, if I played a match and I didn’t perform well, I couldn’t speak to my parents for a whole day. I was too upset with myself. I am sure that my mom was looking at me, thinking: ‘What the hell is wrong with him? It’s just a game.’ But for me, it was almost like a drug”.
Opel Corsa over Ferrari for Rodri
Rodri also tells a story about his first car: “At first, I would ride my bike to training. Finally I got my license and I told my father, ‘OK, I have 3,000 euros to buy a car. See what you can find me’.
“He called me back the next day, ‘OK, I found a good one. This old lady is selling it. She wants 4,000, but it’s got a computer in it.’ I’m like: ‘Wow. A computer? It’s a deal.’”
“He brings me the car. It’s an Opel Corsa. I get in the car and the “computer” screen is about 8 centimeters. You could tap it to turn on the radio and that was it. I was amazed. I drove that car to training every day, like a baller. My teammates made fun of me, but I didn’t care! I loved it!
While Rodri is now a soccer superstar, it only become possible as a result of him doing what millions of others do around the world at a young age: study. “I made a deal with my parents when I was very young. If I wanted to pursue my football dream, then I had to go to university as well,” he writes.
University: “the most fun years of my life”
The midfielder enrolled at Jaume I University in Castellón de la Plana in the east of Spain, lived in a student residence at the nearby Villarreal Academy and cycled to training. Unlike other teenage students, however, he had to resist the temptation to enjoy himself too much.
“Someone said to me, ‘Rodrigo, how come you never come out with us? Come on, man.’ And I had to tell them, ‘Well, I play football. I have training in the morning.’”
“At that point, I was still training with the second team. I was a nobody. I didn’t even have a car. And in the eyes of my teachers, I was just ‘one more.’ In Spain, university is university.” A period Rodri describes as “the most fun years of my life”.
The Spaniard’s “normality” can be seen in the story he tells of when he missed the bus to a LaLiga game in Valencia because he was studying in his dorm room. He elaborates further in The PLayers’ Tribute: “When I leave the pitch, my goal is to always make sure that my feet are on the floor. I think sometimes people misunderstand that part of me.”
How Simeone and Guardiola shaped Rodri as a player
Rodri’s winning and competitive mentality enabled him to make the breakthrough with Villarreal, go on to make a name for himself at Atlético de Madrid and enjoy huge success at Manchester City.
“At Villarreal, I learned what it means to be a professional. Not just a footballer, but a professional. When I moved back home to Atlético for one season, I learned what competitiveness really means.
“When I was at Villarreal, I was very good with the ball at my feet, but I was still a bit soft. Under Diego Simeone, I learned what it means to be the bad guy. To be a bit of a bastard on the pitch. To really tackle. To make the other team miserable for 90 minutes. That was another important piece.”
As for the third step in his club career to date: “When I had the chance to move to City the next summer, it was a dream for me. I had spoken to Sergio Busquets before I agreed to the move, and he told me, ‘Pep? He is going to make you a better player. But he is never, never, never going to stop pushing you. You will never be finished.’”
Under Guardiola, Rodri has indeed established himself as one of the world’s top players. As he himself says, the former Barcelona head coach “is always one step ahead. He is always evolving before the game around him can evolve. He is never satisfied with keeping things exactly as we played last season, because your competition is always going to be analyzing last season. You don’t win four Premier League titles in a row by standing still. You either reinvent yourself or you die.”
Champions League victory “a feeling I’ve been chasing all my life”
Rodri scored the winning goal in the 2023 Champions League final, which saw City win the tournament for the first time in their history.
“When I scored the goal in the Champions League final in 2023, it was not a ‘calculation’. It was a feeling, from 20 years of football, since I was playing in the garden. The second before Bernardo put in the cross, I was actually very far away from the play. On the TV replay, you can’t even see me. There was really no chance of the ball coming to me. I should have stayed still. But I took one step forward toward the box. I don’t know why. I wasn’t thinking about it. Because nine times out of 10 — maybe 99 times out of 100 — when Bernardo crosses the ball, it’s not going to come my way.
“We suffered for those 20 minutes [after the goal], and then the whistle blew. That’s the feeling that I have been chasing all my life. The joy that I felt was not at all about scoring the goal. It was about suffering for 90 minutes as a team and winning. It was about securing the treble for our fans — who have supported me from the day that I came here. It was about seeing the smiles on the faces of the kids in City scarves. Hugging my family and saying, “We f****** did it.”
Chelsea UCL final defeat an important experience
Success tastes even better when you’ve already tasted the bitterness of defeat. Although he perhaps wasn’t quite as vital a player for City as he is now, Rodri was already in Manchester when the Sky Blues were defeated in the Champions League final in 2021.
An experience he says it was important to go through: “In the good moments, you don’t learn, you just enjoy. In the bad moments, when you truly suffer, that’s when you really grow”.
“I remember after the ‘21 Champions League final against Chelsea, I walked back into the little family area, and when I saw my parents and my brothers, I literally couldn’t speak. It was like I was 10 years old again, at the kitchen table. I couldn’t say a word. I just thought: ‘I never want to feel this feeling again. I have to work harder. I have to find a way to be better’.”
Rodri: from university student to Ballon d’Or contender
Having played pivotal roles in Champions League and European Championship victories, former university student Rodri Hernández is now being talked up as a Ballon d’Or contender.
Finally, the midfielder reflects on his role as a leader with Spain, which was clear for all to see in Germany in the summer.
“Before the tournament started, I challenged myself to be more of a leader. I am not the oldest guy in the dressing room, but we have some young (Very young! Scary young!) guys from a new generation, and I felt that I could help them with the pressures of such a big moment. When I think about what Lamine and Nico achieved this summer, it makes me so happy. To step up in a moment like that with your whole country watching — at 17, at 22 — it’s unbelievable. If they knew how I was living at their age, their minds would probably explode.”
So while he remembers his university days with huge fondness, he is sure he took the right career path: “With all due respect to books and economics and accounting…. There is only one thing that touches the heart like that. Only football can do it. Thank God for our parents for making us study, eh? Thank God for football for making us dream”.