The double bus quets: How Guardiola Rodri works

Before his first Champions League final after ten years of abstinence, Pep Guardiola was spoiled for choice in early summer 2021. Should he put veteran Fernandinho before his defense - or would his legal successor Rodri take on the role of the sole six? Guardiola succumbed to his nature of having to try something special in special games and finally decided against both. Champions League winner became Thomas Tuchel, the Catalane had "caught" again.

• Rodri shines above all through long passports
• a busquets parallel that demands the whole team
• Real Madrid - a Mismatch for Rodri?

Fernandinho is now 36 and has announced that Manchester City is leaving in summer. Because Rodri expired him. In a way that is actually in the spirit of Guardiola. "It is not good for a central midfielder to sometimes have outstanding games, but in between weaker appearances," said the Catalane in October, four months after the lost final. "Always a seven or eight out of ten", Guardiola wishes such a consistency in this position. Who would have thought that he would find what he was looking for at Atletico Madrid?

Rodri came to Manchester from the Rojiblancos in summer 2019, where he was trained for six years. And initially did not convince. Sometimes outstanding, sometimes weaker - sometimes ten, times three. In the meantime, Rodri plays between seven and eight week after week and therefore also week after week in Guardiola's first team.

The 1.90-meter man no longer wobbles, it is a firm, stable stand. Already 31 international matches for the Spanish national team are another logical consequence, although a certain Sergio Busquets also plays in this, under Guardiola once a world-class player matured. "He is always attentive and intuitively knows what we need," says the coaching genius that now needs one thing for his game: possession of the ball.

In the offensive game of his team, Casemiro plays a lower role than Rodri. Champions League

In the current Champions League season, UEFA spent around 60 percent ball possession for Manchester City, FC Bayern and Liverpool, City's semi-final opponents Real Madrid stands through the duels with the more ball dominant Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea "only" still at 52 percent. The pass values of the men before the respective defense show that nobody makes as many meters in this way as Rodri.

Already 1.54 kilometers of passes (0.33 of which progressive, i.e. over at least ten meters), the anchor from the Skyblues has played, Liverpools Fabinho and the royal Casemiro do not even come up with 1. Even the Munich Kimmich, in the rarest of the sole six and average more offensive, cannot keep up on this point. City's ball circulation has a clear fixed point.

Rodri shines above all through long passports

This fixed point is a player, about whose 16-year-old himself the coach Javier Calleja (most recently Deportivo Alaves) in the "Guardian" already said despite Rodris giant stature: "His game intelligence was already his great strength at the time." Rodrigo Hernandez Cascante understood to slow down the game or to accelerate suddenly like no other.

And so with a closer look at his pass values, it is noticeable that he does not just push the ball on to the next man a few meters away, as could be assumed in the Guardiola system. With 14.7 per game, Rodri plays almost as many long passes as Casemiro and Fabinho - with the eye that the Citizen has a significant success rate with this frequency despite Kimmich's even higher maximum value.

Impressive values: Almost every Rodri shift arrives. Champions League

So Rodri boosted City's game not only with plenty of passport kilometers, he also shifts it - clearly. With a famous reliability. And despite his stature, there is no pressing trap such as Casemiro. The Skyblues even rely on his passing game when they come under pressure. Of course, players such as Bernardo Silva or Kevin de Bruyne could also dribble or tank. But passes from Rodri are the safest variant. And Guardiola likes security.

"If we have the ball, the opponent cannot score a goal," the great Johan Cruyff once preached. And his student Guardiola preached it. Pass kilometer and pass rate - the catalane seems to have gradually found its new bus quets. Or rather the double bus quets, purely physically. A certain problem began for a long time.

a busquets parallel that demands the whole team

"I try to learn a lot from him," Rodri admittedly admitted. With which he probably did not allude to a certain disadvantage, which the approximately ten kilos of lacquer Busquets brings with it when a Guardiola team does not have the ball. In England in particular, they were of course surprised that a man had his weaknesses in the game against the ball like a tree. And the statistics also show: Fabinho (four times per game) and Casemiro (3.49) tacklen much more often than their sky blue counterpart, who prefers to intercept balls through clever position game (2.64 times per game compared to 2.15 and 2, 17 times). Rodri doesn't do that alone.

Rodri acts entirely in terms of tackle and intercepted balls. Champions League

When he was even more on his own on the square, Rodri was often caught in opposing counterattacks. Without the ball on the foot, he lacked speed and mobility and Fernandinho in the meantime became a regular player from time to time.

"He wanted to do more than what we were expecting from him," Calleja also recalled the moments when Rodri once again lured himself out of his position and literally let the remaining defense down. "But at some point he found the balance and learned to be where he had to be," added Calleja with regard to Rodris development under Guardiola.

And this is especially thanks to the trainer, who, like once around busquets, also gathered his (residual) defense around Rodri, to whom it was so easier to appear in the right places or to conduct his secondary people so that they close the gaps. Rodris game is a balancing act. And a question of the team.

Real Madrid - a Mismatch for Rodri?

But which team will give Guardiola against Real, initially in the first leg on Tuesday evening (9 p.m., live! At Champions League)? Especially since the royal of the approach is not a team that will bite the teeth on Rodris pressing resistance - but rather one that tests with devotion whether it cannot be isolated into a weak point in switching moments.

Although his opponents only feel the 1.90 meters of the double Sergio Busquet occasionally, Guardiola has learned one thing in this regard: Rodri does not play, the Manchester City feels.