It may not come as a surprise that Manchester City are trying to get Rodri to sign a new contract as soon as possible.
Their midfield lynchpin, the man who scored the winner against Inter Milan, Wednesday night’s opponents, to deliver the first Champions League in the club’s history, has been offered a huge new deal that would put him close to Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland’s current earnings.
The timing is standard practice for City. Rodri has three years left on his current deal and that is the point where the clock starts to tick for the club. With two years left, the leverage starts to shift towards the player; the closer they get to leaving for free, the more money they can demand in wages and the more encouragement it offers to rival clubs that they can strike a deal.
Just look at Bayern Munich’s situation with Jamal Musiala, for example, which, naturally, City may look to benefit from.
City want to avoid that happening to them and, this time in 2018, they offered Leroy Sane new terms to tie him down in plenty of time, but they always had pushback and essentially knew by the start of 2019 that he wanted out.
On the other hand, after a difficult period for John Stones a few years ago, City did not feel any particular rush to renew his terms, meaning they were comfortable with him going into the final two years of his contract. In the first of those, the 2020-21 season, he had a fine season and so City were desperate to keep hold of him, it just cost them a little more because of his increased stock.
Understandably with Rodri, given his importance to the team, they want everything sorted out quicker than usual, and they are pushing for an answer.
They are hopeful he will sign and cases like Sane’s have been a rarity in recent years, with players offered more money to stay where they are already happy. That could easily be the case with Rodri, who knows he has more or less everything he could hope for in Manchester, other than sun and family.
But there is one other consideration, and on top of the money, pedigree and ambition that he enjoys at City, Real Madrid can offer the sun and family element, too.
There are no other clubs who could sign Rodri at this point, in terms of the finances involved or the sporting aspirations, but City have always suspected, one day, Madrid may come calling. To some extent, that day has arrived.
Following the 28-year-old’s exploits for Spain this summer, being named player of the tournament at the European Championship and, with it, shooting up the Ballon d’Or reckoning, his stock has risen globally, but particularly in Spain.
Dani Carvajal, the Madrid right-back, was open in discussing how he has been telling Rodri for a while to move to the Santiago Bernabeu, and given the politics of Spanish football, you can be sure that that was not just an idle comment.
Last week there was the inevitable front page headline in Madrid-based newspaper AS that simply said ‘Rodrigo 2025’. Club sources played that down, and with good reason: they know it would be a difficult operation to pull off. And if that story suggested the operation was underway, it is hardly full steam ahead.
A source, speaking anonymously to The Athletic in order to protect relationships, has confirmed Madrid are interested in signing Rodri but even they believe they do not have the means to make it happen. They know how much he has been offered by City and have no intention of matching it. They also do not think they could afford the transfer fee that City would demand.
But they are willing to wait to see the outcome of the 115 charges brought against City by the Premier League. The hearing started on Monday and it has been reported that a verdict is due in the new year. Madrid’s thinking is that if City are found guilty and receive a major punishment — City maintain their innocence — then there may be an opportunity to make a move for Rodri.
Rodri is very happy at City, although he was born in Madrid and it is thought the idea of moving back there during his career does appeal.
The decision facing him is to sign the new contract at the club where he is happy, essentially committing himself to City and ruling out a move away for the remaining peak years of his contract, or wait and see what happens with the charges and take things from there, whether that means committing to City, or waiting to see Madrid’s next move.
Given he still has the best part of three years left on his deal, there would not be many short-term implications even if he were to give himself that breathing space and wait a few months before deciding. Only a catastrophic outcome from the charges decision would make a move to Madrid anything like a possibility next summer, and that would be just one of myriad worries for City in that situation.
And if they were not punished at all but Rodri did want to move to the Santiago Bernabeu anyway, it would still be difficult for the Spanish champions to bring a strong offer in the next 12 months, even if City felt their leverage slipping away.
So there is no sense of alarm around City, either related to the charges or Rodri’s future, but the fact that an outcome related to those charges is in sight, and that Madrid’s entire plan hinges on waiting to see what happens, adds an interesting dynamic to the next few months off the pitch.
(Header photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
