On July 11, 2010, Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, Rodri (Madrid, 30 years old) was in the middle of a forest in Connecticut, not too far from where tomorrow he seeks to fulfill the dream he had that day. It is unnecessary to mention the anniversary of that day, but it is relevant to place the captain of the Spanish national team, right on that date, at a camp to learn English where his parents sent him that summer as a new example of something that has shaped Rodri’s personality: at home, if studies were not going well, neither was football. The fact is that on July 11, 2010, in a Connecticut forest, Rodri managed to get the monitors to set up a television so he could watch the Johannesburg final.
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“And when Iniesta scored I ran alone through the forest. No one understood anything,” he recalled a few days before the World Cup started in an interview with FIFA. Rodri’s obsession with the World Cup perhaps began there, but it has certainly taken shape over the years. This is his second appearance in the World Cup after the bitter taste left by Qatar. Not only because of the round of 16 elimination against Morocco, but because he played every minute… but as a center-back.
It was the culmination of a process in which, until that moment, and after having debuted with the senior team in 2018, he was in the shadow of Sergio Busquets. Similar to what is happening now with Zubimendi, Rodri had ahead of him the best in the world at that time, and in Qatar Luis Enrique thought that someone as good as Rodri should play, but it was not the time, the Asturian thought, to retire ‘Busi’, so the solution was what it was and it turned out as it did.
Busquets retired from the national team after that event and, then yes, Rodri took the reins of the team also anchored to Luis de la Fuente, who had known him since the 2015 U19 European Championship. The results, already known: 2023 Nations League, 2024 European Championship… And then, his knee was destroyed in September of that year. There his career, his way of facing it, changed completely. It took a few months to realize, but in the summer of 2025 he realized he was making the same mistake as in the previous six years.
70 matches, 5,000 minutes
After reappearing in the Club World Cup, June of that 2025, he did not rest even four weeks, repeating the formula he had been using on his vacations since 2019. It had been five seasons playing 65-70 matches a year, approaching or reaching 5,000 minutes. For example, in 23/24, the year of the European Championship, he exceeded 5,500 minutes. The fact is that he realized the mistake and, in October, asked to meet with Guardiola and told him to his face that he, after the injury, needed to change some habits and that from that day (day 5 to be more precise) he was starting a process that would lead to several weeks of specific work, a kind of preseason like before.
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A program designed in detail and in which all of Manchester City was involved: technical staff, physical trainers, physiotherapists, recovery specialists, and nutritionists. With what goal? To forget the injury definitively, of course, to extend his sports career, of course, but above all, to arrive well at the World Cup. In fact, after the match against France some statements by Guardiola (from those days) went viral in which he said: “Do you know when you will see the best Rodri? At the World Cup with Spain.” Guardiola helped him achieve it.
And here he is, giving very few interviews but dispelling the doubts he left, along with the team, in the first matches and owner of outstanding performances as the opponents became more powerful. Especially remarkable were his matches against Portugal and, the other day, France. Rodri is the player in the tournament who makes the most passes: 694, of which 93% reach their target, a total of 648. The other two on the podium, by the way, are Laporte and Cubarsí, the Bermuda triangle that for opponents represents Spain’s ball outlet. These days he repeats, over and over, a litany that everyone in the camp already knows by heart: “I have come here to win the World Cup.” And he repeated it yesterday at the impressive Javits Center in New York, the venue for official press conferences, but he introduced a nuance, not minor. ” I told the guys before the semifinal. You have to want to win more than fear losing. We are going all out for the World Cup.”
“He has had that in his head all year,” says someone who has spoken with him many times these months. Here he is the second player who has offered himself most times to a teammate (389) only surpassed by Bellingham (475). However, there is a crushing fact that differentiates the type of play of the Spaniard and the Englishman. Only five of those 389 times that Rodri offered a ball outlet to a teammate did he do so with someone behind him (that role is better performed by Fabián and Olmo). Most of those offers are to teammates ahead of him (what is known as a safety pass). He has offered himself like this 269 times. But his most striking leadership in statistics is the amount of kilometers covered in the tournament. He is the one with the most (83.802 kilometers in seven matches), five kilometers more than the second, Harry Kane.
Perhaps this better explains a phrase he said just before traveling to the United States: “This team runs like a small team and plays football like a big team.” A phrase from the captain, 69 matches with this shirt and about to fulfill the dream that was born in a lost forest in Connecticut.
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