Sports

Rodri, the man who has won it all – and knows what it takes to overcome tough times

Published

1 hour ago

August 16, 2026

Barcelona have reached an agreement in principle with Manchester City for midfielder Rodri, a player who is currently on top of the world.

The 30-year-old captained Spain to win this year’s World Cup, where he received the Golden Ball having been voted the tournament’s best player, while being widely regarded as tactically and technically its most significant performer.

The holding midfielder’s performance in the 1-0 win against defending champion Argentina in the final was among the best of his career. He was everywhere — nipping in to intercept a dangerous pass, arriving just in time to provide a passing option to a team-mate in trouble, surging forward on the ball to set up a Spain attack.

His incredible display at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey was a reminder of the talents that led to Rodri winning the 2024 Ballon d’Or, a prize for the best player in the world game over the previous 12 months that usually goes to superstar attackers whose skills and strengths are easier for fans to appreciate.

Rodri’s attributes can be more difficult to recognise from a distance but, in that World Cup final, Argentina were well aware of his importance, trying everything to stop him, including fellow midfielder Leandro Paredes hitting him with a cynical cheap-shot off the ball.

But those on his side always know his worth. “We’ve always said that Rodri is the best player in the world,” Spain head coach Luis de la Fuente said after the final.

Rodri added the World Cup to his list of honours that already boasted the 2024 European Championship title with Spain, and the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League, plus four Premier League titles and five domestic cups in England, with City.

Rodri won the Champions League and four league titles at City (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)

In a neat twist of fate, Rodri was also in the north-east of the United States during Spain’s other World Cup final win, back in 2010.

Two years ago, he wrote in The Players’ Tribune about watching Spain’s win over the Netherlands in that South Africa-hosted tournament on a mini laptop owned by one of the counsellors at a summer camp in the middle of a forest in central Connecticut, which the then 14-year-old Madrid native was attending to improve his English.

That is just one example of how Rodri is not an ordinary footballer. He has no social media accounts, and does not care for expensive sneakers or fast cars.

Even after he started to come to prominence at La Liga club Villarreal as a teenager, he was still studying for a degree in accounting and economics, living in the university’s residential areas and driving a battered Opel Corsa to training. Around then, he also started dating Laura, a medical student who is now his wife.

Rodri thrived at Villarreal, having been released by his first club, Atletico Madrid, when he was 16 due to concerns he was too small to make it as a professional (pretty ironic now he stands about 190cm/6ft 3in).

In 2015, he won a European Under-19 Championship with Spain, along with future senior international team-mates Unai Simon and Mikel Merino. A La Liga debut with Villarreal soon followed, and within three years he was a full Spain international and had returned to Atletico in a €25million transfer (about $28m/£21m at current rates).

Rodri spent just one season in Atletico’s first team — and there were tensions as he and the club’s Argentine coach Diego Simeone had different ideas about the role of a holding midfielder. Rodri has since paid credit to Simeone’s influence on his career.

“When I was at Villarreal, I was very good with the ball at my feet, but I was still a bit soft,” he later told The Players’ Tribune. “Under Simeone (himself an international-level defensive midfielder in his playing days), I learned what it means to be the bad guy. To be a bit of a b*****d on the pitch.”

Rodri playing under Simeone, who he praised for improving his game (Oscar Del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images)

During and after this summer’s World Cup final against Argentina, Rodri did not react to the provocation from over-aggressive opponents. But he did also show a streetwise side to his game with a sly jersey tug in the first half to make sure Argentina’s star man Lionel Messi was unable to counter-attack dangerously.

That hard side to his character and his playing style also allowed Rodri to thrive in the Premier League after City paid his £62.6million ($83m) release clause to take him from Atletico in July 2019.

Rodri quickly settled into becoming City’s most important player, carrying the ideas and attitude of their manager Pep Guardiola onto the pitch. Team-mates such as strikers Sergio Aguero and Erling Haaland may have made more headlines, but the holding midfielder playing further back on the field quietly maintained the team structure so that others could shine. His metronomic passes kept the opponent boxed back in, while his reading of the game helped to close down rival teams’ attacks.

While Rodri does most of his work near the centre of the pitch, he picks his moments to strike in attacking areas, such as arriving in the penalty area to steer in the only goal of City’s 1-0 Champions League final win over Inter of Italy in 2023.

The following summer, Rodri was again crucial as Spain won the 2024 Euros, scoring a rare international goal when the team was struggling in an early group game against Georgia.

“The biggest virtue a leader must have is to remain calm when there’s a heavy storm,” Rodri said during that tournament. “Trying to guide the team and show them the light when your team-mates struggle to find the right option. This is a good leader.”

Is Rodri back to his Ballon d’Or best?

Reuben Pinder

Rodri limped off during the victory over England in that tournament’s final with an injury, and further fitness problems hampered him through the past two seasons in Manchester. Whether by coincidence or not, City did not win the Premier League in either of those years, after doing so in each of the four previous campaigns with the Spaniard central to their team.

Having barely played for Spain since Euro 2024 due to injury, including an ACL tear that kept him out of action for eight months and limited him for far longer, Rodri returned to form and effectiveness at this summer’s World Cup, again showing an uncanny ability to make maximum impact when most needed.

Moving back to Spanish club football at some point was always on the cards. Rodri knows what it is to come through tough times and return to the very top.

“For me, it’s been a very tough time,” Rodri said during Spain’s World Cup-winning celebrations.

“I said to the lads before the game, ‘We need to face them, look into their eyes’. We were brave, and I was brave in that moment when I was down. I want to thank all the people that helped me. But I want to thank myself, to be honest, in those moments.”

Sports

Burnley 2 – 2 West Ham

Published

5 minutes ago

August 16, 2026

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Zian Flemming struck twice late on as Burnley came back to deny West Ham in a 2-2 Championship draw between the freshly relegated sides at Turf Moor.

West Ham, strong favourites to make an immediate return to the Premier League, looked set for three points when Manor Solomon rifled home in the 72nd minute, doubling the lead given to them by Max Kilman 10 minutes in.

But Burnley kept scrapping, and Flemming struck an 83rd-minute penalty before finding the net in stoppage time to give his boss Nicky Hayen a first league point on his 46th birthday, and prevent what would have been their first home Championship defeat since April 2023.

West Ham may have lost Mateus Fernandes and Crysencio Summerville for big transfer fees since the drop, but have crucially kept Jarrod Bowen and this week broke the Championship transfer record with a £22m deal for Arne Engels to underline their promotion credentials.

It was too soon for Engels to be involved here, but for much of the afternoon Nuno Espirito Santo’s side looked to have the edge in quality against a Burnley team who too often made the wrong decision and wasted first-half opportunities.

There was less than a minute gone when Flemming flicked over from Jacob Bruun Larsen’s cross, but it was a false dawn for Burnley as West Ham scored from their first real chance.

Kilman took advantage of poor defending, easily peeling away from Aaron Ramsey to head in Bowen’s free-kick for his first goal in 68 West Ham appearances.

With former manager David Moyes watching on, West Ham were bossing possession as a full away end dominated the atmosphere at Turf Moor, with plenty of bright touches from Solomon – a key part of Leeds’ promotion campaign two years ago.

Burnley had the momentum at the start of the second half, but Flemming had already wasted two excellent chances before he got above Konstantinos Mavropanos to send Marcus Edwards’ inswinging cross onto the post, from where it bounced back into the arms of a grateful Mads Hermansen.

Flemming’s frustration then grew as another effort was cleared off the line by Ollie Scarles from Bruun Larsen’s corner.

West Ham’s first shot of the second half did not come until the 71st minute when Bowen’s strike hit his own man in Kilman, but Burnley never fully cleared it and Mohamadou Kante danced down the touchline before his cross was deflected for Solomon to lash home.

But Burnley got a lifeline when Scarles scythed down Edwards in the box and Flemming sent Hermansen the wrong way, and two minutes into the seven added on, the ball broke to him following a scramble in the box and he picked out the bottom corner.

Nuno eyes attacking signings | ‘Draw tough to take’

West Ham boss Nuno Espirito Santo speaking to Sky Sports on whether he wants to sign a striker:

“Yeah, unfortunately today Pablo felt something in the calf. We need more options in the offensive part of the team, of course.”

On the draw: “It was a tough one to take. First half, we did things quite well. We controlled, we played good, we created a lot of situations.

“Second half, Burnley reacted, had a couple of chances, but after we scored the second time it was about trying to keep the result, having more of the ball. We were not able to do as much as we should.

“We should have kept the ball more and tried to exploit a little bit more of the space that we had. But overall, the result, the chances of Burnley, ourselves, we have to be fair.”

Hayen: It feels like we won the game

Burnley boss Nicky Hayen speaking to Sky Sports:

“I’m really pleased with the way we showed resilience and came back in a game that we actually didn’t deserve to lose.

“The team showed character today, and that’s the most important. They were really clinical, and we weren’t.

“At the end, we level up, and it gives a feeling that you won the game, even if we have one point.

“But the way we came back was really good, and I’m really pleased for everyone.

“When you draw against one of the biggest favourites for the title, you can be happy.”

‘Draw magnifies West Ham’s need for a new forward’

Ex-West Ham goalkeeper Rob Green speaking to Sky Sports on the Hammers’ pursuit of Leeds forward Joel Piroe:

“Bring him in, and today just really magnified that they need it.

“Pablo, for all his endeavour, he’s not scored a goal yet for the club. They had two shots on target today.

“He’s not creating anything, so you’re looking for a guy to add goals, add more creation and someone who’s a target and a force to be reckoned with.

“The season’s so long in the Championship, and Nuno knows this, as he alluded to himself – more options. It was plural.

“The cynic in me says this was a good day for Nuno because he turns around and bang, that’s where we’re short.”

What the result means and next fixtures…

Sports

Newcastle 1-1 Strasbourg: Newcastle at best when ‘us against world’ – Dan Burn

Published

12 minutes ago

August 16, 2026

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It will clearly take time.

Burn needs no reminding that all of Newcastle‘s arrivals are 24 and under and have never played in the Premier League before.

But he wants to “embrace the change” as he looks to help the new signings quickly realise what it means to play for the club.

“Right now, can you tell if someone is going to be the next Bruno?” he said. “Maybe not, but I think there’s definitely ability there.”

Jaissle has repeatedly used the word “transition” since taking charge and said the vocal Burn will be “vital in helping guide our younger players through this period of change”.

It will fall to Burn and the club’s other senior players to push those around them, knowing full well the standards which were set when the club qualified for the Champions League and ended a 70-year wait to win a major domestic trophy by lifting the EFL Cup.

Newcastle finished 12th in the Premier League last season, but were previously a ferocious and spiky side to play against at their best under Howe.

Burn, however, suggested they were “not allowed to” tap into the dark arts anymore.

“It seemed everything we did was stopped in the Premier League in the season after,” he said of various rule changes.

“It’s more a mentality. Not that we ever tried to hurt people, but everyone said that. People feared us and didn’t want to play against us. I’d love for us to have a bit of that.

“All the best teams seem to. If that’s going to help us, I’d love to do that but I’d be surprised if the Premier League allowed us to.”

The top flight will get the first glimpse of this new-look side when Newcastle face Liverpool at St James’ Park next week (Sunday, 16:30 BST).

It is set to be an emotional afternoon as the stadium pays tribute to the late Kevin Keegan, one of the most transformational figures in Newcastle‘s history, who also represented Liverpool as a player.

Burn had lunch with Keegan at the end of May – following an invitation from Newcastle‘s former manager – and said he was a “great person to be around”.

“I don’t think we need any motivation,” he said. “Either us or the city.”

Sports

Jack Grealish: Shop window or new chance – what next for Man City winger?

Published

18 minutes ago

August 16, 2026

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Grealish has the chance of a fresh start under a new manager at City in Maresca.

The Italian did say after Sunday’s game that Grealish will get games if he stays and impresses.

But it still feels more than likely he will end up leaving.

“Is Grealish going to be the player to change City and make a difference this season?” asked ex-Scotland winger Nevin on BBC Radio 5 Live.

“I don’t think many people think that’s going to happen for Jack at Manchester City, but it’s a chance to say to any suitors at all that he’s available, he’s fit and he does look good.

“He’s done enough for me to think he’ll do a job for somebody.”

Grealish could yet return to Everton. The Toffees opted not to make the deal permanent for City’s rumoured valuation of £50m this summer.

But with one year left on his supposed £300,000-a-week deal, and with Grealish likely to be a substitute at best, City are surely going to be open to lower or loan offers.

BBC Radio Merseyside reporter Giulia Bould said: “Grealish is still someone the Toffees would want to sign again, most likely on another loan, but he will need to have recovered from the foot surgery he underwent in January.

“Grealish has made no secret he loved playing for the Toffees and his social media bio still has Everton as his club so if all parties can agree a deal then I would expect him to be back.”

Could he even go back to his boyhood club Aston Villa, who are in the Champions League this season?

BBC Radio WM presenter Daz Hale said: “There is a real romance of the return of the prodigal son. You always felt it was written at some point he would come back.

“He is still a wonderful talent and adds real personality to a football team. He carries the ball really well, and we have lost Morgan Rogers.

“It is a Champions League season again for Villa, they need to have strength in depth with a deeper talent pool. I think he would be an asset to Villa. You cannot have too many good players.

“Whether it is this year or next year, I just think it is written in the stars that he will come back.”

Or could an overseas move for Grealish hold some appeal? Several media outlets claim that Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid are looking at him.

The window is open for another fortnight. Grealish must be peering through and wondering what path his career is about to follow.

For now, he remains City’s player, with just that lingering possibility he could still revive his career at the Etihad.