Manchester City have long held a position of financial power in the transfer market, but even they cannot stop the passing of time.

Across the last 10 seasons, the club has seen long-serving players leave almost annually, with Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva recently joining the long list of departed club legends. Technically brilliant, decisive and relentless, all have possessed a rare combination of standout attributes that City’s recruitment analysts have continually worked hard to replace.

That said, Rodri’s potential move to Real Madrid feels different. Finding his successor is even more critical.

Alongside Pep Guardiola’s exit this summer, City are losing a foundational pillar of their possession-heavy style of play. Rodri’s quality on the ball has dictated the way they have moved up the pitch. When they lose possession, his unmatched sense of anticipation has allowed them to push on without fear of being caught defensively.

And, unlike others who have gone before, Rodri is not leaving as a faded, ageing version of his former self. Having just won the World Cup with Spain, and the award for the tournament’s best player, the 30-year-old would be stepping away just as he looks to be returning to his imperious best.

City have already made moves to bolster their options in midfield, with the club-record acquisition of Elliot Anderson originally signalling their intent to add athleticism alongside Rodri. Their growing interest in 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi points to long-term planning.

But that future has arrived sooner than they expected, so how could new manager Enzo Maresca set up to minimise the impact of Rodri’s departure?

Replacing Rodri will be difficult. He takes possession under pressure more than his team-mates and consistently picks the best pass, adding value to many of the passing moves in which he is involved.

Since joining the club in 2019, he has averaged close to 109 touches per game, far clear of any other player in the division, all while maintaining a passing accuracy of close to 92 per cent.

The scatter plot below helps illustrate his unwavering skill to keep the ball moving and link up with his team-mates when compared to other midfielders.

Setting the tempo is important at City, and Rodri knows when to snap into a more attacking gear. He is effective when striding through midfield with the ball at his feet or picking out an incisive, line-breaking pass.

The visualisation below, using data from SkillCorner, illustrates his varied distribution, based on the passes he has played that led to shots for City within 10 seconds of completion.

Most frequently, Rodri will pick up the pace and fire a pass from deep midfield into attacking players in dangerous central areas.

When space is at a premium and the opposition have dropped deeper, he can push on himself and combine with shorter, punchier passes on the edge of the box. He is also comfortable sweeping the ball out to the flanks to change the dimension of the attack.

Those lofted balls to the far post have quickly become a key pass in Rodri’s armoury, floating the ball over a mass of players and into the path of an onrushing team-mate.

Not just the execution, but also the speed with which he can get the ball out from under his feet and reliably execute the pass, makes it an effective route to bypass deeper defences, constantly offering City a way through.

Here, in a 3-1 Champions League win against Copenhagen from February 2024, we see Rodri drop between the centre-backs to offer himself for the ball, looking over to the left flank twice before receiving. With one touch to set, he barely hesitates before pitching a looping ball over 10 opposition players for Jeremy Doku to pick out a first-time cross.

Combining such effortless distribution with an innate sense of defensive anticipation is what makes Rodri’s profile unique. It is where his absence could be felt the greatest while Anderson and any other potential replacements get up to speed with the positional side of the game.

It took Rodri a couple of seasons to master the art of anchoring the midfield by himself, but he has since become an expert at leading the counter-press. He regularly helps City instantly regain the ball, snuffing out opposition counter-attacks and keeping his team on the front foot.

In this example against Liverpool, Virgil van Dijk intercepts Rayan Cherki’s pass in frame one, leaving City exposed.

As is typical of Guardiola teams, his players react quickly to form a net around the ball. As Milos Kerkez looks for the forward pass to Florian Wirtz, Rodri steps in to nick the ball back.

Without that instinctive sense of positioning — not to mention the power and timing of his tackle to stretch and win the ball — the opposition could have launched a dangerous break.

Across his Premier League career, City conceded around 0.1 expected goals per game via opposition counter-attacks with him in the team, a figure that rises to around 0.15 when he is missing. It points to the territorial control Rodri helps establish, especially because his technical skill means City rarely lost the ball to begin with.

Maresca’s hopes of implementing a similar style of play hinge on Rodri’s replacement and their effectiveness with and without the ball.

All eyes naturally turn to Anderson. City have placed so much faith in the 23-year-old because of his physicality in midfield and his endless appetite to get on the ball.

No player across Europe’s top five leagues made more defensive recoveries last season than Anderson (301), who was tireless in his mission to sweep up loose balls in front of the back four.

Those interventions span the length and breadth of the pitch, with the former Nottingham Forest midfielder always switched on to regain possession, much like Rodri.

Anderson will face new demands at City, where positioning and 50-50 challenges are even more crucial as team-mates push on, but a strong World Cup for England demonstrated that he can be a secure presence at the base of midfield.

Elliot Anderson was an energetic presence for England at this summer’s World Cup (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

In possession, Anderson created 51 chances in the Premier League last season, more than any other Forest team-mate. He was particularly effective when he dropped alongside his defenders, generating power, whip, and precision from deep, wide crosses.

Though it is difficult to project how Anderson will step up, there are signs that he possesses the ability to move his team forward when the opposition sit deep, even if his weight of pass does not yet match Rodri’s high standards.

Below in the 2-1 win against DR Congo in the World Cup round of 32, we see the kind of situation he might face at City. Anderson quickly shifts the ball to his right foot and digs out a clever pass down the flank.

He attempted 15.4 per cent of Forest’s passes — the largest share of any player in the league — while only Granit Xhaka at Sunderland completed a higher percentage of their team’s progressive passes (at least 10 metres long, moving the ball at least 25 per cent of the remaining distance to goal, or into the penalty area).

Anderson rarely shied away from the task of dictating his team’s possession play, demanding the ball and looking to drive his team-mates up the pitch. With his best years ahead, that bravery in possession bodes well.

The expectation is that Anderson will be tasked with receiving passes from City’s defenders as they look to build from the back, much in the same way that Moises Caicedo picked up the ball in pockets of space under Maresca at Chelsea.

Should City’s pursuit of Bouaddi intensify, there would be the option to push Anderson forward into a box-to-box role.

Bouaddi has shown promise as an intelligent holding midfielder who deals with the ball well under pressure, while he is aggressive and energetic enough without the ball to ensure his team is not overrun in the centre of the pitch. Though he clearly has areas to develop, Bouaddi is comfortable in tight spaces and could dovetail well with Anderson, who is similarly versatile across midfield.

Even if Rodri stays, City will need to start succession-planning soon. His possible departure only adds pressure for Anderson to hit the ground running, but the signs suggest he can eventually fill the void.

In September 2024, Wojciech Szczesny thought his football career was over. He had fallen out of love with football.

After leaving Juventus, the former Poland international had settled into retirement in Marbella. He was enjoying spending time with his family and hobbies — including playing the piano — with little intention of returning to the game.

Then Barcelona called. Marc-Andre ter Stegen had suffered a complete rupture of the patellar tendon in his right knee, ruling him out for the rest of the season, and the club needed an experienced replacement. Szczesny accepted what he expected to be a nine-month assignment.

Less than two years later, he is at St George’s Park, England’s national football centre in Burton upon Trent, preparing for what will be his third season at Barcelona. In his time at the Camp Nou, he has won two league titles, the Copa del Rey and two Spanish Super Cups.

Sitting down with The Athletic during pre-season, Szczesny answers questions thoughtfully, occasionally reaching into his pocket to pull out a vape, turning it over in his hands before taking a drag.

“Do you mind if…?” the 36-year-old asks.

He does not attempt to hide it. Like much else about him, he doesn’t try to hide anything.

“I never claim to be a perfect person,” he says later.

That same honesty runs through the rest of the conversation. He speaks openly about falling out of love with football, using meditation to detach emotionally from the game, embracing a supporting role behind Joan Garcia and, eventually, describing his nicotine habit as a weakness rather than pretending it does not exist.

In a sport where public image is often carefully curated, Szczesny seems more interested in being authentic than appearing to be flawless.

This is the story of someone who fell in love with football all over again.

“When I stopped, I didn’t want to play football anymore,” he says. “I didn’t imagine anything happening after 2024. Now I’m living one of the best times of my career, and I’m loving every minute of it.

“I kind of fell out of love with football. I didn’t enjoy playing anymore. I didn’t enjoy waking up for training.

“I had one year left of my contract with Juventus, which at some point they were not able to afford.

Szczesny initially retired after leaving Juventus in 2024 (Paolo Bruno/Getty Images)

“We decided to part ways, and I was not ready for any challenge. I didn’t want to change countries, move clubs, find new schools for the kids and find a new place. It was an easy decision (to retire) for me and the family. Once you get to a certain point of your life, family actually comes before football.”

Having made that decision, Barcelona offered Szczesny a surprising step back into the game.

“When I really settled, and I was really happy at home in Marbella, then this opportunity came, and I think it was just too big not to take it”, he says.

“I hesitated for some time. It wasn’t a straightforward decision, but it was too big. In the end, I still love the challenge, and I’m still very ambitious.

“When an opportunity like that comes along, and you have the ambition in you, and you believe in yourself… even for your own ego, you want to test yourself, and you want to see what you can do at this level.”

He arrived in Barcelona in early October 2024, but did not make his debut until January, during the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia. He needed a few months to regain the necessary fitness following his retirement.

He fell in love with Barcelona, and it wouldn’t take long for the fans to fall in love with him too: “I was already a retired footballer, and now I get to live such a beautiful moment. I’m kind of one of the fans on the pitch.

“I made a conscious decision when I came back to football. I said to myself: ‘If I make this decision, I will enjoy it at 100 per cent’.

“I do treat it as a bonus to my career. I’m going to make the most of it — I’m gonna enjoy it the way that I like to enjoy it, and it seems authentic to people. I very much feel the love back as much as I fell in love with this place and with this football club.”

During his time with Arsenal, Szczesny, as reported by UK newspaper The Independent, was fined after being caught smoking. That led to the chant Barcelona fans began singing after immediately connecting with him. They shout ‘Szczesny fumador (the smoker)’.

Barcelona have had two street parades to celebrate trophies since he joined the club. At the first one, he wore a straw hat bearing the words: ‘Fumador’ (smoker). At the second, he joined some fans in singing his chant.

“I’ve never had my own chant before, so that’s already a surprising thing,” he says. “I enjoyed it. I try to be as authentic as I can, and people seem to appreciate it.

“It might not seem the most professional thing in the world, but I am who I am. People know that I have one addiction that I cannot get rid of.

“And I think even that feels authentic to them, because I would imagine that a lot of players have certain addictions, whether it’s nicotine or alcohol or gambling, I don’t know. But there’s one player who is quite open about it, and that’s me. And it’s an addiction that I’m not even willing to fight. I embrace it, and maybe it just feels authentic to people.

“People don’t think I smoke because they saw a hidden photo of me from the paparazzi. I admitted to my addiction, and it’s an addiction that a lot of people in the world have.

“People can probably relate to it. I don’t even think about recommending people to take up smoking. I think it’s a terrible thing and everybody should avoid it. It’s a weakness of mine, but I’m fine with that weakness.”

That authenticity follows into how he acts around the rest of the squad.

“I’m aware of the persona that people see now as the oldest player in the dressing room, but the one who smiles a lot and is very relaxed. But that’s not the only thing that is behind the person. Sometimes what you show on the front page is not all that there actually is.

Szczesny, with Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha, celebrates winning the Spanish Super Cup in January (Getty Images)

“I could shut up and not smile and not enjoy my life as much and try to be judged more as a professional footballer and a person who actually has this big knowledge of the game, which I can pass on to the younger players of the team. But I choose not to.”

Case in point: before this interview, Szczesny approached the young players in Barcelona’s squad, pretending to sign their shirts and taking photos with them as if they were fans. They were in fits of laughter.

This is a very common sight around the goalkeeper: he’s always in a good mood, cracking jokes and creating a great atmosphere in the dressing room. It’s one of the things head coach Hansi Flick values most about him.

When Barcelona were knocked out of the Champions League by Inter Milan in 2025, Szczesny comforted a crying Gerard Martin in the dressing room. There’s a sense that he always knows what to say.

“It’s taken a long time to be able to play with almost no emotions on the pitch”, he says. “I played for a club (Arsenal) at a very young age that I also supported as a fan, and that just took a lot out of me. Every time we won games, I cheered as a player but also as a fan — and when we lost, I was sad as a fan as well as a player. It was just a lot of emotions to deal with, and then you have to prepare for the next game in three days, and you’re kind of not ready for it.

“When I left the team, I found out that the best thing for me to perform at the best level is to be completely emotionally out of the game.

“I kind of only treated it as a job. It doesn’t sound nice, but it was what was best for me. A lot of my meditation was about calming down all the emotions and focusing only on what’s in front of me.

“It takes a little bit away from the joy of winning the game because you are not as emotionally attached to the result. But it also saves you from suffering when you lose games, when the moments are more difficult.

“I felt that was not positive for my performances. It was a conscious decision. I found meditation is one of the techniques that helps me a lot, a lot of breathing exercises.”

His days as an Arsenal player came to an end in 2017, but his commitment as a fan led him to follow their title-winning season from afar.

“I suffered a lot (during) the Champions League final. But to win the Premier League after 22 years… It’s a big relief because I’ve waited for it for a very long time and I’m very happy they built a project of probably one of the best clubs in Europe.

“When I was there, we had one season when we were on top of the league for a very long time, and we lost in the end. I felt we were the best team in the league. But we were a very young, inexperienced team, and in the end, when it mattered, we fell short.

“It still hurts because it’s the one trophy that I haven’t won in professional football that I would have loved to win… winning the Premier League with Arsenal. It’s still bugging me from the inside, but as a fan I’m very happy about what happened this year.

“Arsenal is a place where I made my dream come true. Emotionally, it’s the maximum that I believe anybody can achieve: playing for the club of your dreams. I’ve achieved the dream. It’s the peak of your career. It’s a beautiful story, although I only won three trophies with Arsenal: two FA Cups and a Community Shield.

“It will probably always be the most beautiful part of my career. The one filled with the most passion. It was also the start of my career. I was very hungry, very determined to show people that I belong at that level.”

Szczesny during Arsenal’s FA Cup final win over Aston Villa in May 2015 (Paul Gilham/Getty Images)

After nearly two decades at the top of European football, Szczesny finds himself in unfamiliar territory. For the first time in his career, he begins a season as the clear No 2 behind Barcelona’s new first-choice goalkeeper, Joan Garcia.

During their years together at Juventus, Gianluigi Buffon taught him that a veteran goalkeeper can still shape a team without making life harder for the man ahead of him. And that’s exactly what he is giving to Garcia.

“I wanted to make sure that he doesn’t feel challenged from my side. My ambition is still there, and I still believe I can give a lot of good things to the team on the pitch, but I felt that it was important that in his first season at the top level he feels all the support in the world and not a challenge from my side. (I also want) to help him grow and give him a little advice in training.

“When I see something that he can improve, it feels a little bit uncomfortable because he’s a better goalkeeper than me. But I see that he wants to learn; he wants to get new information. Sometimes there are things that maybe I can tell him, although I can’t even do them anymore (laughs) because I’m not at his level, but I feel that my knowledge of the game is big and I can still help him. He’s willing to learn.

“I had Gigi (Buffon) as my No 2 at the end of his career, and I never felt challenged by him, so this might be a subconscious decision of mine because of what I was given by Gigi, I would want to give to Joan. I’m still friends with Gigi today, and we’re still in touch.

“So hopefully when I finish playing, Joan will be able to appreciate me trying to help him and not challenge him.

“I feel needed by the team, and I feel useful even when I don’t play. That’s why I decided to renew my contract and to stay until the end of the season. It’s challenging because of the level that we have, and I want to make sure that I’m also at that level.

“It’s something that makes me proud of myself every time I finish training, and I feel that I can still do it.

“You don’t always have to be the No 1 on the pitch in order to be able to help the team and help them deal with certain situations because you have the experience. I’ve lived a lot of difficult moments, a lot of good moments.

“So I can pass the experience on to younger players. It’s a good feeling.”