You know, I’ve watched Rodri play football countless times over the past, well, almost decade or so and I can’t tell you how many times I thought to myself: ‘Wow, I wish he played for my club.’
And far be it for me to presume too much but I think I can confidently tell you that (almost) every Barcelona fan out there had that same thought numerous times since his big transfer to Manchester City.
‘It should’ve been us!’ Or something along those lines. You know how it goes, anyway.
Now, if I were pressed to describe both Rodri in a nutshell, I would promptly point you to what was actually seen, quite clearly at that, at the World Cup itself.
And I bet you already know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?
Here’s a guy who had no goals and no assists and yet, he orchestrated Spain’s superiority over every other nation in the tournament, including the team that had the best player in the bloody history of the sport. Of course, he ultimately won the Golden Ball too, which may or may not be a controversial decision depending on who you ask.
I know crowning him the best ahead of Lionel Messi does not sit right with everyone but my point is that to even be in that conversation as a player who doesn’t make the highlight reels is… impressive. Maybe ‘impressive’ is not even the right word.
Either way, Rodri’s ability to be the invisible force behind everything good his teams do borders on the supernatural.
So you understand why it felt like fate or destiny (or whatever you want to call it) when Sergio bloody Busquets himself apparently told Rodri to take the Manchester City move. So he did. And then Pep did what Pep does best: he took a great player and made him the best. And he did it by building the whole system around him for years, using coffee cups as chess pieces to explain key concepts and ultimately skyrocket his progression.
And now, some years later, that remains the perfect description of Rodri and his role. ‘The player who is most valuable by not moving.’ Love that.
So when Barcelona inevitably try and blitz every rival next season, Rodri will (hopefully) be there to make sure they don’t fall apart while doing it.
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
We first need to understand who he is if we want to understand how he changes whole systems singlehandedly.
At Dom’s Tactics Lab, we love a good stats section, you know that much. So we’ll do that using Pranav’s incredible tool.
One of the most impressive but also somewhat surprising things about this dying breed of a midfielder is actually his half-space presence.
I did not necessarily expect Rodri to sit at the 99th percentile for half-space receptions and the 94th percentile for key passes. I mean, the 98th percentile for total passes and the 95th percentile for progressive passes, sure. But definitely not all four at once.
To quickly go back to my initial question in the introduction: no, ‘impressive’ does not even begin to cover who and what Rodri actually is.
And he will get you into the box from the half-spaces with 93rd percentile into-box actions too. The cherry on top that I want to highlight as well here is the 99th percentile defensive actions and recoveries, meaning that he’s the shield and stabiliser behind the attacking unit.
But what all of this actually tells us is that Rodri is not operating just in the central areas, despite Guardiola’s instructions on restricting movement.
In reality, he will be deeply involved in the half-spaces around Pedri, Lamine and even the full-backs when they crash the advanced zones. You could even say that he’ll provide that missing link in the zones where Flick’s system is either dominant or… collapsed.
So far so good, then? But we’re only starting.
Let’s look at one thing people may not be expecting and something that will make him even more unique at Barcelona: aerial win rate.
It may surprise most of you that Rodri actually sits at the 100th percentile ranking with his 81.5% open-play aerial win rate. And then we add his 73.9% set-piece win rate at the 95th percentile and 1.39 passes off aerial duels to complete the picture.
In a midfield comparison group where no other player provides meaningful second-ball aerial control, this is a completely new function arriving in the squad. If you’ve been watching Barcelona for a while now, you know it’s the area in which they consistently fall short. Pun not intended. Kind of.
The third statistical category I want to tackle here is territory gained per 90, as this is something Barcelona will be losing without Frenkie specifically.
Pedri gains 264m per 90. Frenkie 238m. And Rodri? 306m per 90.
For a player so often described as a holding midfielder, which, of course, we can still say that he is, this is the clearest data rebuttal available. We know that traditional number 6 players are meant to be sitting still. Well, Rodri… isn’t. Looking at the way he progresses, it would seem that he is advancing the play more than almost anyone in the comparative sample group that we studied for this tactical analysis.
Now, his release speed sits at the 5th percentile, meaning he is among the slowest releasers in European football by that metric alone.
But I want to reiterate again what I tried explaining for Frenkie as well: this is a strength masquerading as a flaw. Both players hold onto the ball until the decision to release it has a value worth taking. Sure, we all like to see fast circulation and one-touch passing from Barcelona players but knowing when to be fast and when to slow down is the actual superpower for a deep-lying Blaugrana midfielder.
In any case, these three data categories above describe Rodri the player. The rest of our exhaustive analysis describes what that player does to the whole system.
Let’s rock and roll.
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