Rodri has now shared what he said to his Manchester City teammates after the 3-0 FIFA Club World Cup win over Urawa Red Diamonds.
The 27-year-old was quoted by the Mirror.
So, what did Rodri say to his Manchester City teammates? Let’s take a look…
What Rodri said to his Manchester City teammates
Well, the Spain international was keen to drum home the significance of Friday’s FIFA Club World Cup final, and warn his teammates not to allow the recent string of poor results to affect them.
The prestigious tournament is highly valued by those in South America and elsewhere, although it is often disrespected by people in England who do not see much point in it.
However, Rodri is under no illusions about just how fine an achievement it would be to secure the “incredible” FIFA Club World Cup.
The Spain international said: “Sometimes you deserve it (bad results) and sometimes you don’t. It’s a time when you can’t speak much, you have to be quiet, work as hard as you can and results will come. We must go game by game and not think too much about what is coming.
“I said to the lads we must just focus on now. We have a massive opportunity to win an incredible trophy. We’re in the final. It was tough. Let’s do our best to win it.
“We could be ten points behind when we go home, but we don’t panic. We don’t look at the table. We have to just focus on ourselves and keep calm – even though we aren’t in the first spot now.”
Spoken like a true leader.
Rodri is spot on – Manchester City cannot control what happens back home in the Premier League, so it would be foolish to think about anything other than the FIFA Club World Cup right now.
How Rodri performed for Manchester City
The Spaniard – who praised Matheus Nunes – was superb against Urawa Red Diamonds, winning the Man of the Match award after a solid performance.
As SofaScore shows, Rodri completed 108 passes, including 12 out of an attempted 14 long range switches.
The Manchester City No.16 also won three of his four attempted ground duels, while also making one key pass.
It was a fantastic performance, and Pep Guardiola will need the influential Rodri to deliver another showing like this against Fluminense on Friday if Manchester City are to win the FIFA Club World Cup.
