Rodri Wins Ballon d’Or

Man City and Spain superstar, Rodri, has won the 2024 Ballon d’Or crown, becoming the first Premier League footballer to take glory since Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008. The awards ceremony took place in Paris on Monday the 28th of October, 2024 and the midfield lynchpin took the biggest prize of them all.

Rodri looks set to miss the rest of the current season due to injury and this award further highlights what a huge blow that might be. The player suffered a serious knee injury in September, rupturing his ACL, and that has posed a major dilemma for City boss Pep Guardiola. Rodri has been so key to the club’s success since arriving from Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2019.

City met his release clause, which was a club record for them at the time, but the £63m transfer fee they paid quickly began to look like a bargain. Rodri, who will still be 28 when this season finishes, has got better and better under Guardiola, having previously learnt so much from Diego Simeone at Atleti.

He is the complete midfielder and then some, offering a positional sense and reading of the game that few can match, making him a brilliant defensive midfielder, whilst also having the skill, technique, range of passing and finishing ability to be effective at the other end of the pitch too. He obviously did enough in Spain to persuade the Cityzens to part with a huge amount of cash to bring him to the PL, but over the past few years he has taken his game to the next level.

Stats Show Value to City

The brilliance of Rodri is part of the reason why Kalvin Phillips failed at Man City. The career of the former Leeds star really fell apart at City and the hit to his confidence may be terminal. He arrived not long after having been voted the England Player of the Year and was almost irreplaceable with Leeds and the Three Lions.

However, Rodri kept him out of the team and when injuries or rotation did mean he got game time, he just wasn’t able to perform the job that Rodri had. At this time, and indeed at various points over the last couple of years, stats have been highlighted showing the importance of Rodri to City. When he played, they invariably won and when Phillips – and latterly anyone else – replaced him, they didn’t, and often lost.

International

Quite remarkably, when Rodri has played for either club or country, they have lost just a single game in the past 19 months. That is an astonishing stat and one that perhaps Phillips can take some heart from. It isn’t just that he can’t perform Rodri’s duties – nobody can. Looking further back, right to the start of the Spaniard’s career at City, they have more or less lost twice as often without him as with him (21% when he has been absent and just 11% when he has played). Essentially, that is the difference between winning the league and scraping into the top four, that’s just how crucial Pep’s main man is.

England

Rodri rather modestly claims that his first season in England “was a disaster”, as he struggled to adapt to the demands of his manager. Rodri came into the squad as a back-up up for Fernandinho, the Brazilian having established himself as one of the best defensive midfielders in the world. However, over time, Rodri’s intelligence allowed him to develop his game and understand what Pep wanted from him. The 2024 Ballon d’Or winner said, “You’re like a coach on the pitch” and also, “You have to make sure team works and nobody is lazy or distracted. When the team doesn’t work it’s kind of your fault.”

That is a huge responsibility but it is Rodri’s ability to carry out all these roles that makes him so important. He is the coach on the pitch, the defensive cover, the leader, the organiser, the metronome dictating the tempo … but also a player who can dribble past a player, play a slide rule pass and even score the odd screamer here and there too.

Respect and Recognition for Rodri

⚪️👀⚫️#ballondor pic.twitter.com/V2obIbyA7o

— Ballon d’Or (@ballondor) October 31, 2024

City fans and most in England have known both how important Rodri is to the champions, and just how good he is, for a long time. The win stats with and without are nothing new and, of course, it was his goal that won the Champions League final against Inter Milan in 2022/23. But even by his high standards, the past 18 months or so have been special.

He was named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year in both 2022/23 and 2023/24 and then in 2024 played a key role in his country’s triumph at Euro 2024. He got injured in the final against England, with many Three Lions fans hopeful his substitution might tip the game their way.

It wasn’t to be, with Spain handling his loss far better than City tend to. Spain went on to win and Rodri made the Team of the Tournament – as you would expect considering he was named Player of the Tournament too. His win in the Ballon d’Or has capped a remarkable run for him, and will hopefully help maintain his spirits during his long recovery from injury.

His success was rather a surprise, with Jude Bellingham, then Lamine Yamal, and most recently Vinicius Junior all having been strong favourites for glory at different times. However, it was Rodri’s name that was read out and as brilliant as Vinicius has been, it has to be said that Rodri deserved the crown.

In a show of Spanish dominance, this was the first time ever that the male and female awards went to a player from the same country. The imperious Aitana Bonmati won the Ballon d’Or Feminin, whilst it was a Spanish treble, with Yamal unsurprisingly winning the Kopa Trophy. Rodri became the third Spanish winner of the main prize and the first since 1960.