By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-07-18 17:28:12 | Updated at 2026-08-02 18:56:45
2 weeks ago
It was no secret that Rodri didn’t return to his best in 2025-26 after a lengthy injury absence. But after exercising restraint and patience, he has led Spain to a second World Cup final.
It’s been a long road back for Rodri.
He missed about eight months of football after rupturing his ACL in September 2024, but really, his recovery went on significantly longer.
In fact, there’s an argument we are only now – at the 2026 World Cup – seeing the best of him once more. That we are seeing him at such a level again at all likely has something to do with Pep Guardiola.
The-then Manchester City head coach called it, to be fair. Ahead of facing Brentford in October last year, Guardiola was adamant the “real Rodri” wouldn’t be seen during the 2025-26 season.
“I told Rodri that it’s not a six- or seven-month story,” he told reporters. “It’s not: ‘I come back, I play and I become the Rodri of before.’ No, the real Rodri, we’ll see him at the 2026 World Cup with Spain, and from next season, he’ll be at his best.”
How prescient. Though it’s not been a case of simply waiting. Rodri had to be managed delicately by Guardiola.
Mere days after Guardiola made those comments, Rodri suffered another injury. A hamstring issue. While nowhere near as serious in isolation as his ACL rupture, it seemingly acted as something of a wake-up call.
Two months later, with Rodri still yet to return to the starting XI after that strain suffered against Brentford, Guardiola said he was being “a bit more careful”.
“After what happened with previous [injuries], when there were setbacks, we have to be more cautious [this time], make a step more safe to not do it again, it’s simple,” he said.
“It’s not a setback, the process of recovery is going well… but he’s suffering, he’s struggling, because he wants to come back, but I want to protect him. I want to be sure right now, not that he cannot be injured again, but minimise the risk. This is what we want. He wants, I want, and all medical staff, physios want [for] him.”
Essentially, Rodri could, in the literal sense, have returned earlier than he did. He actually came off the bench in the 89th minute of the 3-1 win over Bournemouth on 2 November, but then he didn’t play any part in City’s next 12 games across all competitions.
Click on the image to enlargeThe next time he was even on City’s bench was the 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest on 27 December, though he didn’t feature. His return to the pitch then came on New Year’s Day in a 0-0 draw with Sunderland.
In the Spanish press, a reasonable amount has been made of Rodri’s absence at the end of 2025. The discourse around it applauds his foresight in deliberately planning to take longer over recovery and commends Guardiola for supporting him in that.
It now seems likely that Rodri’s patience then has at the very least played some role in helping him return to his best this summer, and therefore significantly aided Spain’s journey to just a second World Cup final.
It wasn’t so long ago that there was a debate about whether Spain should use Rodri or Martín Zubimendi at the base of their midfield. The Arsenal player did, of course, play a fairly prominent role in World Cup qualification due to Rodri’s injury absences.
But Luis de la Fuente appeared to make his choice during the March internationals. Rodri made his first start for Spain in 18 months in the 3-0 win over Serbia, before also playing 45 minutes of the draw with Egypt. Zubimendi, on the other hand, came on for Rodri late on in the Serbia game before withdrawing from the squad due to a knee complaint.
De la Fuente has insisted the pair can play together, but that doesn’t appear to be an option he’s ever contemplated at the World Cup. Rodri said he was “leaving [Zubimendi] the keys of the team” when he sustained his ACL injury – he’s very much in charge again now, however, and Spain are all the better for it.
He has been their safety blanket.
In possession, he’s doing exactly what you’d expect. He ranks second out of all players at the tournament (270+ minutes) for passes (101.2), successful passes (94.0) and ball touches (114) per 90 minutes.
His total 655 completed passes is already the most ever by a player in a single World Cup – and while it is worth remembering that figure is aided by playing more games than players at many prior tournaments, his 94.0 successful passes per 90 is the highest average of anyone to rack up at least 400 minutes at a World Cup. The legendary Xavi in Spain’s glorious 2010 team only averaged 84.3 per 90.
When Spain need to build with the ball, Rodri’s there. When a colleague needs to offload possession quickly while under pressure, Rodri’s there. And he’s typically reliable, completing 92.9% of his passes, which puts him ninth among midfielders (270+ minutes) at the tournament.
Maybe you’d think he’d be even higher than that, but you also have to recognise he doesn’t just keep Spain ticking over with short, easy passes. He plays a crucial role in playing through the opposition, whether to get his team on the front foot, beat the press or leave opposing midfielders chasing their tails.
For instance, only two players have averaged more line-breaking passes per 90 than him (15.2) at this World Cup, and he’s played considerably more minutes than either of the two players ahead of him in those rankings.
The precision he provides through the lines helps Spain turn defence into attack quickly, and there’s a sense this incisiveness is even more helpful because of how fluid and dynamic De la Fuente’s team are further up the pitch with their positional flexibility.
Dani Olmo pops up all over the place; Mikel Oyarzabal drops deep; Álex Baena drifts inside; Fabián Ruiz patrols across the midfield in front of Rodri; the full-backs are adventurous – only Lamine Yamal really stays relatively fixed to the area you’d expect him to be in, and that’s surely because he can be so devastating when isolated one-v-one.
There’s almost always someone to be found, though Rodri makes it all look far easier than others would.
But the thing with Rodri is, if you overlook the injury he had in 2024, none of this is especially surprising. We know he’s a sensational player – that’s why he won the Ballon d’Or.
There is an argument, though, that his most notable contribution at the 2026 World Cup has been what he offers out of possession. That was at least the feeling during Spain’s most impressive performance of the tournament, in their stunningly comfortable 2-0 win over favourites France in the semi-finals.
Rodri generally operated deeper than he had in his prior outings at this World Cup. That will, of course, have been influenced by the coach’s choices and the standard of opposition, but it also had a seismic impact.
Rodri’s presence practically nullified France’s chief creative threat, Michael Olise.
Olise and Kylian Mbappé failed to exchange a single pass in the first half as Les Bleus struggled to plot routes through the Spanish midfield and backline.
Olise’s ability to slice open defences had been a feature in previous games, but he only managed to record two line-breaking passes against Spain, half his previous lowest at the tournament.
And more generally, his effectiveness in possession was way down.
The ‘possession lost’ metric can be a slightly misleading one for creative players because by definition they are perhaps more likely to cause turnovers due to playing riskier passes. But from his 55 touches of the ball, Olise lost possession 36.4% of the time; his previous high for this World Cup was 23.7% vs Iraq.
France were simply outfought and outthought.
Spain attempted 22 tackles to France’s 14 and won 14 to Les Bleus’ eight.
Spain won 55.9% of the game’s duels, with France’s 44.1% success rate in those tussles their lowest in a World Cup game since 1978.
And France won just 32% of the game’s aerial duels. That amounted to eight, their fewest in a World Cup game for 40 years.
The fluidity referenced before in relation to Spain’s in-possession habits is also a factor off the ball. Even if they don’t necessarily look compact, they have such intensity when hunting the ball that they can suffocate you anyway.
There was a fine example in just the third minute of the semi-final. Mbappé seemed to have spun away from Rodri out wide, but Olmo was immediately on the scene to slow the Frenchman’s progress, allowing Rodri to get back and regain possession.
That was the one time someone escaped Rodri in such a manner, and he still ended up coming out with possession thanks to the team’s collective ravenousness.
Time and time again, Rodri was there to frustrate France in some capacity.
Whether he was dispossessing Ousmane Dembélé just outside the box late in the first half, doing the same to Mbappé in the area soon after, conceding necessary disruptive fouls in unthreatening areas, or winning aerial duels in his own box, Rodri put out fires continuously.
Rodri undoubtedly played his part in Spain’s broader joy in the match’s physical tussles, which felt definitive in the contest. His 11 duel wins was as many as Aurélien Tchouaméni and Adrien Rabiot combined; he was the only player on the pitch to tally more than two aerial duels and win all of them (4/4); and no one bettered his four tackle attempts.
We associate Spain with dominance through possession, but in the semi-final they only had a little over 50% of the ball. Instead, they blunted the best attack at the 2026 World Cup through their relentlessness, and Rodri was central to that. In the final awaits the best attacker at the 2026 World Cup – Lionel Messi.
The Argentina talisman has been irresistible, decisive to a greater degree than anyone else at the tournament when it comes to attacking threat.
Might Rodri be the only player up to stopping him?
Guardiola did say we’d see the “real Rodri” at the World Cup. Spain have reaped the rewards of his patient, cautious comeback, but the real prize awaits on Sunday.
Rodri’s long road back might just have the most joyous of conclusions.
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