Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, a 30-year-old footballer known in the football world as Rodri, landed yesterday just after eight in the evening at El Prat airport to be presented today as the new player of FC Barcelona. His first words were ambitious: “Playing for Barça is a dream and I am already eager to get to work. The Champions League? I come to win everything that lies ahead.” Violin music for the Barcelona fans.
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This is not just any signing but probably the most impactful of this summer and one of the most significant in recent years. The blaugrana club enlists the best defensive midfielder in the world, a status confirmed in the last World Cup, a competition in which he captained Spain to victory and was chosen as the best player.
At Barça, the defensive midfield position is no small matter. If the style of play were a religion, the essence of the faith would flow through there, especially since Johan Cruyff gave the figure of the four a crucial importance. Luis Milla started the saga, Pep Guardiola consolidated it, Xavi polished it before moving forward in position, and then Sergio Busquets nailed himself in the spot with innate ease. Frenkie de Jong, currently injured in the knee and with much more mobile characteristics, has frequented the position with good results, but without a doubt Rodri fits like a glove by football schooling as the ideal successor in an updated version of the one from Badia. In the best Manchester City in history, the Madrid native has been Guardiola’s extension on the pitch for no less than seven seasons.
The player landed yesterday, will be presented today, and will have his first contact with the fans at the Gamper
The signing of Rodri will cost Barcelona 60 million euros fixed, to which bonuses related to titles won and matches played could be added, always with percentages above 60 percent of matches per season. The final price depending on these variables could reach 70 million, but it is unlikely to exceed that figure, as the variables beyond that will be more difficult to fulfill.
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The footballer, who had one year left on his contract with Manchester City, spent the night in a hotel in the Catalan capital and the plan is to present him today in a closed event in a commercial area near the Spotify Camp Nou, although not in the stadium itself due to construction works. The possibility was considered by the club but ultimately discarded precisely for logistical reasons. Under normal conditions, the stadium doors would have been opened due to the magnitude of the player, whose signing has been very well received by the Barcelona fans. The first contact between Rodri and his new fans will not take long. It will be tomorrow Wednesday on the occasion of the Gamper. The match against Egyptian Al-Ahly will start at eight in the evening, but an hour earlier the squad presentation and speeches will take place. Rodri is not expected to play minutes yet, as he will have barely trained with his new teammates and met Hansi Flick, his coach from now on, by early today when he will undergo the relevant medical examination.
Regarding his new teammates, Rodri will not need an introduction. First because of the tremendous weight of his figure and second because he has lived and won the World Cup with many of them. This is the case of Cubarsí, Olmo, Lamine Yamal, or Pedri, the latter of capital importance since much of Barça’s success will depend on the chemistry between the two. Rodri’s arrival only offers certainties due to his quality and his interpretation of the game, with tremendous harmony with that developed by Barça, but in the World Cup Rodri’s growing evolution coincided with the Canary Islander’s benching. That does not seem to be a big problem considering the quality of both players.
Established and with a style that fits Barça, all are certainties pending his mix with Pedri
Both Flick and Deco, sporting director and main architect of the reinforcement, value, besides his football, Rodri’s experience, a sought-after characteristic in a very young squad that is considered to have lacked composure in key moments of the Champions League, a competition that obsesses the German coach. In that sense, Rodri is welcomed as a mentoring figure for Marc Bernal, a 19-year-old defensive midfielder with potential to compete with Rodri and, above all, succeed him.
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