Several Manchester City players were rewarded for their terrific displays throughout the 2023/2024 Premier League season at the PFA Awards, including Rodri.
The £62.5 million man was named in the PFA Team of the Year, alongside his Manchester City teammates such as Phil Foden, Erling Haaland and Kyle Walker.
Arsenal’s quintet of David Raya, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard, Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk and Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins were also named in the team.
However, Rodri was not even nominated for the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award — with Foden, Haaland, Watkins, Odegaard and Cole Palmer in the running for the individual honour.
- READ MORE: Who is Rodri? Get to know Man City’s modest midfield maestro who won a Champions League final
Rodri makes bold Phil Foden claim after he wins PFA Players’ Player of the Year award
However, Manchester City’s number 47 eventually lifted the award.
The 24-year-old’s truimph means in the last four editions of the accolade, three Manchester City players have won it, with Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne taking the award home in 2023 and 2021 respectively.
The Englishman certainly deserved to win the award — leading City to their fourth successive league title while emerging as their best attacker with 19 goals and eight assists in the Premier League last season.
When discussing Foden, Rodri went as far as to claim that he has the potential to go down as the greatest English player of all time.
Speaking to BBC Sport, the Spaniard said: “For me, he has the ability and he’s able to be the best English player in my opinion when he finishes his career.”
The 28-year-old added: “Of course, he needs to keep developing his game, already he’s one of the best players in the league, in Europe. But I think he could get even better and better.”
“I think the quality he has and the ambition, the hard work he does every day and the way he tries to understand and listen to the old people for me and for the team and for him.”
Rodri felt Foden merited being the winner of the PFA Players’ Player of The Year award, saying: “So I’m glad for him, he deserves it, he was unbelievable, outstanding last season. I think it was the first season I saw him carrying the team on his back and it’s massively important for us.”
Rio Ferdinand described Foden as “unreal” during the first few weeks of the previous campaign and he lived up to the billing to say the least.
Phil Foden must push himself to be in such conversations one day
As things stand, the likes of Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes would widely be regarded as some of England’s best-ever players.
However, as Rodri stated, Foden has the natural talent as well as the seeming work ethic to be named amongst such stalwarts as one of, if not his nation’s greatest player in history.
With how many trophies he has won as well as being just 24, the Stockport-born midfielder has sufficient time to achieve enough in his career to be spoken about in such glowing terms one day.
However, with Foden being the world-class player he already is and at one of the best clubs in the world, he should strive to become at least one of England’s greatest of all time.
Judging the trajectory of his career, the silky technician certainly can be considered up there by the time his career ends.
Whether Foden will have the drive to reach such heights will be interesting to see unfold over time.
But considering how highly Rodri seems to rate him as a player as well as his relentless hard work, the Manchester City attacker could well be destined to emerge as his nation’s best-ever player.
