The Ballon d’Or was seen even by those at Manchester City as an award for players from other clubs and for other types of player, but Rodri’s win changes that. The midfield maestro is a worthy winner with some special statistics of his own to back it up…
Speaking to Pep Guardiola earlier this year about Rodri it is fair to say that he was not expecting this. “If holding midfielders started getting the recognition of Erling Haaland and Kevin [De Bruyne] we would have a problem,” Guardiola told Sky Sports.
“The holding midfielder has to never, ever be in the highlights. The holding midfielder has to think for the rest of the team and not expect the recognition. Without him, we could not do what we are doing. But the highlights have to belong to other people.”
A conversation with Bernardo Silva in the summer also comes to mind. The ultimate team man himself, he hinted at his contempt for these individual trinkets. Not for him the claim of Trent Alexander-Arnold that the Ballon d’Or is the prize he most craves.
But if you understand the game people inside the game, either player or manager, know how important it is to have a proper goalkeeper, proper defender, proper midfielder and proper striker, not just a proper striker. Strikers do not win titles alone.
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