Pep Guardiola has called 27-year-old holding midfielder Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, popularly known as Rodri, the best in the world.
The Spaniard and Guardiola have worked together for four seasons and are currently in their fifth season together. The former Barcelona coach was looking for a player like former Barcelona captain Sergio Busquets to become the fulcrum of his team and identified the then 22-year-old while he played for Atlético de Madrid in LaLiga.
Rodri has gone on to become a key figure in all of Manchester City’s successes in that time, chipping in with goals from the holding midfielder position to sweeten the deal for the manager.
He was rewarded with the Most Valuable Player of the last edition of the UEFA Champions League for his efforts in helping City claim their first European title. Now, he has hit the ground running, helping the club to a comeback win in their first game against Red Star Belgrade.
After the match, the three-time Champions League winning manager Guardiola, called Rodri the best in his position.
“Right now, yeah, he is the best,” the City boss said of Rodri, who scored the third of the night to wrap up the win. “Hopefully he can be better and improve but he is an extraordinary holding midfielder.”
“We were lucky the club signed this player and when he arrived he was not this type of player.”
“Of course he play an amount of games and now he is one of the captains. He is a top class player.”
“The goal is top class but defensively, offensively he reads the play and spaces and knows exactly where men are free.”
“Close to the box he is so dangerous. He loves to arrive in the final third and dribble and shoot. He is playing really, really well.”
Rodri was also awarded the Player of the Match trophy following City’s win over their Serbian opponents. The goal was his third goal in eight appearances so far for the club this season, which is one less than he managed in all of 2022/23.
His new-found goalscoring ability is pleasing fans of the club who are now comparing him to Busquets, whose heir in Spanish football he is believed to be.
Guardiola also appraised the debut of new signing Matheus Nunes who got his first start since joining City from Wolverhampton Wanderers in the summer transfer window.
“Matheus played his first game [after] not much time,” he added. “He has a special quality like Mateo [Kovacic] and Kevin [De Bruyne] to run with the ball and then stop.”
“He has time to improve and we believe he can do more than sometimes he does.”
