Thank God for Football

I always try to tell my teammates at City: I don’t speak English, I speak American. They love to make fun of me, you know? For everything. Usually, it’s for my clothes. What they call my “drip.” And sometimes it’s for the way I talk. But there is a lot that people don’t know about me. In fact I didn’t learn to speak the language in Manchester or London. I learned it in the woods in Connecticut. My reference is American English. 

“I know, mayn. Heya. How ya dewin, bro?” (You know, like this.) 

You see, education was really important in my family, and my father always wanted me to do an exchange at an American high school for one year. But my football dream made that impossible. So instead, when I turned 14, I went to this summer camp in the middle of the forest in Connecticut. Even the name, “Conn-et-ee-cut,” sounded crazy for a kid from Madrid. But when I arrived, it was like I was stepping into a Hollywood movie. You know the movies where the kids go to the camp on a big lake and there’s wooden canoes and you’re climbing trees and sleeping in tents and starting fires with sticks? It was really like that. You’re eating the marshmallows and the biscuits, you know? Over the fire? With the chocolate? 

S’mores. Incredible. 

No phones. No Wi-Fi. I’m all by myself in a new country, trying to make friends. “Hello, I am Rodrigo. I am from Madrid.” (My teammates are already laughing, I can hear them.) I was always saying, in my broken English, “OK, guys, when are we going to play football?”

“Yeah, Rodrigo. We’re playing later. We’re gonna throw the pig skin around.” 

I’m thinking: “The pig skin??”

“Come on, bro. Like the NFL.”

Honestly, I kind of liked it. It was fun.

But I kept saying, “I want to play soccer, guys” 

“Sawker? We’re not playing sawker, mayn.” 

To make it worse, I actually arrived there during the start of the 2010 World Cup. I couldn’t even check the internet, so I was in pain. But there was a little computer in the office of the main cabin, and every single day, I would ask the camp counselors to tell me who won the games. Spain lost the first match to Switzerland, if you remember. I thought they were messing with me. 

“Switzerland? Really? You sure you googled it right?” 

Anyway, time is going by, and Spain start playing better. Knockouts — they keep winning. Then the semifinal against Germany — I’m dying. I’m on a canoeing trip, I think. I keep asking the main counselor, “Please, please can you just find out the score?”

Finally, we get back to the cabins and somebody tells me: “Spain are in the final.” 

I never felt so far from home, but also close to home, if you understand what I mean. 

For the final, I begged the main counselor to let me watch on his computer. He said OK, sure. Then he brings out this computer, and it’s like a 10-inch screen. You remember those mini laptop PCs? It was one of those. Tiny. I’m thinking: It’s beautiful. I don’t care. Just let me watch. 

I don’t know how we did it, because we were in the middle of the woods, but I must have found a stream that was not exactly legal, and I watched the final, surrounded by Americans who didn’t care about what was happening. 

When Iniesta scored, I literally started screaming and I ran outside and sprinted around the lake. 

“Vaaaamoooooosssss!!!!!!!!!! Aaaahahhhhhhhhh ¡¡¡¡¡jajajajajajajaja!!!! ¡Viva España!”

The Americans thought I was crazy. They were shaking their heads. 

They were looking at me like, “Wait, is the Spanish guy crying? Over the sawker?”

They couldn’t understand what it meant to me. They thought I was crazy. And maybe I am crazy….

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My whole life, I have lived between these two worlds. One football, the other the “real world.” 

Sometimes the boys make fun of me for being “normal.” It’s funny because if you asked my missus or even my mum, they would say that I am the furthest thing from normal. When it comes to football, I am an addict. If I am normal it is probably in the sense that I don’t care about social media or £400 trainers. Since I was a kid, I have simply been chasing a feeling.

I didn’t say, “Oh, I want to be a footballer so I can have a Ferrari.” No, it was because what my heroes did on the pitch made me feel alive. I remember being five years old, and there was a communal pool in the middle of our neighborhood, and a little garden. In the summer, it was: football, pool, football, pool. Home for lunch. Back in the pool. Back in the garden.

By the age of 10, if I played a match and I didn’t perform well, I couldn’t speak to my parents for a whole day. I was too upset with myself. I am sure that my mom was looking at me, thinking: “What the hell is wrong with him? It’s just a game.” 

But for me, it was almost like a drug. So I made a deal with my parents when I was very young. I don’t know if we ever actually even spoke about it. It was just “understood.” If I wanted to pursue my football dream, then I had to go to university as well. So when I was 17, I moved away from Madrid to Villarreal, and I also enrolled at Jaume I University. The first year, I was living in the residences of the Villarreal Academy with my teammates. But then when you turn 18, you are considered “old,” and you have to find your own apartment. 

My mom was the one who had the idea: “Why don’t you just move into the student housing at uni?” 

OK, sure. 

So that’s what I did. 

I think it’s very similar in the UK — you’re in a big apartment complex with a common laundry room and showers and a cafeteria and there’s a door, a door, a door. All your neighbours side by side. You have your little room with a wooden bed, wooden desk. I didn’t have a TV or a PlayStation. Just a laptop. In the morning, I would go to training at Villarreal, then in the afternoon I’d go to class, and at night…. 

Well, at night it was funny because obviously it’s uni. When it’s Friday night, everyone is going to the club. But first, they’re “pregaming,” as they say in America. They’re in the tiny rooms playing music and drinking some beers, and there’s like 20 people in one room, with people sitting on the bed, on the floor, everywhere. I was just like any other student — they didn’t even know I really played football — so I’d show up with my sparkling water and I’d hang out for a while until it was time to go to the club. Then I’d disappear. 

Finally, someone was like, “Rodrigo, how come you never come out with us? Come on, man.” 

And I had to tell them, “Well, I play football. I have training in the morning.” 

“Laaaaaammmeeeee. Lame, bro.”

They killed me for it. 

At that point, I was still training with the second team. I was a nobody. I didn’t even have a car. The student residence was a 15-minute drive from the Villarreal training center, and I couldn’t pay for a taxi every day. So I would ride my bike to the tram station — take the bike on the tram — then boom, I’d bike the rest of the way to training. Finally I got my license and I told my father, “OK, I have 3,000 euros to buy a car. See what you can find me.” 

He called me back the next day, “OK, I found a good one. This old lady is selling it. She wants 4,000, but it’s got a computer in it.” 

I’m like: Wow. A computer? It’s a deal. 

He brings me the car. It’s an Opel Corsa. I get in the car and the “computer” screen is about 8 centimeters. You could tap it to turn on the radio and that was it. I was amazed. I drove that car to training every day, like a baller. My teammates made fun of me, but I didn’t care! I loved it! 

The next year, I made my first appearances in La Liga, and I think my friends from school kind of had their minds blown a bit. They told me that they were watching a match on TV, and the guy from down the hall came on the screen. The guy from their accounting class was the No. 6. 

They couldn’t believe it was really me.

“Wait, is this the same guy?” 

“Google it, google it.” 

“No, it can’t be the same Rodrigo. There’s a lot of Rodrigos. It’s not him.”

When you’re on TV in your football kit, you look different, no? And I probably had on my serious face. 

So some of them were convinced: “No, it’s not him.” 

Then when I started playing more and more, and they realized that it was really me, they were like, “What are you even doing here man? You were playing Barcelona last night!”

In Spain, we play this game called Comunio. It’s like a fantasy football game where you buy players and manage your team. Everyone in the student housing played it, and so I would come home from a match sometimes on a Saturday night, and maybe they had a few beers, and they would be like, “Bro, come on! What happened today? You only gave me 3 points in Comunio!!! What the hell???” 

Hahahah. “Sorry! Sorry!” 

Those were the most fun years of my life. I don’t know why, but when I arrived back at the university, my brain “switched” into my other world. School kept the pressure of football in perspective for me. The other amazing thing was that I met my missus in the student residences, and she was studying to be a doctor. Let me tell you — she didn’t care about my football pressures at all. Hahaha. She didn’t want to hear about a draw at Celta Vigo. 

She always kept my “feet on the floor.” 

“Hey, calm down, huh? Calm down. It’s football.” 

And in the eyes of my teachers, I was just “one more.” In Spain, university is university. You are there to work. So when I was in my little room with my laptop, I could get so locked in to what I was doing that I would literally forget about everything else. One day, I was studying for an exam or something, and I had my phone on silent. All of a sudden, I took a break and I realized that I had like 20 text messages, 50 WhatsApps, 10 missed calls. I’m thinking: Oh my God, did someone die? What happened? 

My teammate is calling me. I pick up the phone. 

“Rodri, where are you?” 

“Where am I? I’m here. I’m at the university.” 

“The manager is looking for you. Everyone is looking for you.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re playing Valencia. We’re all on the bus.” 

I thought they were playing a joke on me. 

I said, “Come on man, the game is tomorr……”

Oh my God. No. You know when you have a nightmare that you are back in school and you forgot you had an exam? Well, that happened to me, only it was real. And it wasn’t school, it was La Liga. 

I said, “OK, tell the bus to leave. I will meet you guys at the hotel.” 

Man, I put my clothes on as fast as I could and I ran out to my car, and I was James Bond in my Opel through the streets. The hotel in Valencia was an hour away. By the time I got there, they were doing the team meetings, and I came in looking like “the dog ate my homework.” 

Hahahaha. Let me tell you, it doesn’t work in football either. 

I got destroyed that day, but I deserved it. That was a huge learning experience for me, because I realized that I had to do a better job of managing my two worlds. 

Every step of my journey, I learned through failure, and I added something new. A new piece of the puzzle. At Villarreal, I learned what it means to be a professional. Not just a footballer, but a professional. 

When I moved back home to Atlético for one season, I learned what competitiveness really means. When I was at Villarreal, I was very good with the ball at my feet, but I was still a bit soft. Under Diego Simeone, I learned what it means to be the bad guy. To be a bit of a bastard on the pitch. To really tackle. To make the other team miserable for 90 minutes. That was another important piece. 

When I had the chance to move to City the next summer, it was a dream for me. I had spoken to Sergio Busquets before I agreed to the move, and he told me, “Pep? He is going to make you a better player. But he is never, never, never going to stop pushing you. You will never be finished.” 

Sergio had the same role with Pep, and he achieved so many great things, so I put a lot of trust in his words. And he was completely right. To me, the unique thing about Pep is that he is always one step ahead. He is always evolving before the game around him can evolve. He is never satisfied with keeping things exactly as we played last season, because your competition is always going to be analyzing last season. You don’t win four Premier League titles in a row by standing still. You either reinvent yourself or you die.

You know, when I reference Pep, I always have to talk with my hands. I have to find a table, or a board or something and I have to start moving around coffee cups like a chess board, like he does. 

“He will go here, then he will go there, and then bang — you move here. Into the space. Bang.”

For me, he added that final mental piece of the puzzle. “Seeing” the game in a different way. “Feeling” it — when to move into space, when to hold back. When to press, when to ease off. His confidence was so important to me, because you have to remember, when I came here in 2019, I was walking into a changing room with Fernandinho, Agüero, David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne. Legends. When I was 12 years old, I used to go and watch Agüero on the training ground when he was at Atlético. He was one of my heroes. Now I’m sitting right next to him in the changing room? It was amazing. 

Agüero and Otamendi actually used to make fun of me all the time — not just for my clothes, but because I used to get on the bus after every match and FaceTime my missus. Since I’m a footballer and she is a doctor, we had to get used to being long-distance for many years. What do you do when you’re long-distance? You FaceTime. I’d call her after every game, win or lose. When we won, it was no problem, because the boys would be rowdy and celebrating and they wouldn’t notice. But when we lost, I was still just my normal self. I had no filter. When I speak to my missus, it’s like my brain flips back to being in uni. I become Rodrigo again. So it would be dead silent on the bus, everyone with their heads down, all depressed, and I’d be talking loudly, saying, “Yeah, we were a bit s*** today, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, we drew. Yeah, I’m pissed…. Anyway, how was your day?” 

The first time, Agüero and Otamendi pulled me aside and they said, “Man, you can’t be talking like that on the bus! Pep can hear you! Everyone can hear you!” 

But after every match, I would call her. No filter. 

“Yeah, it was OK today. We won, but I played kind of s***. Are you watching Netflix? What are you eating?” 

Hahahah. We were like two teenagers. Everyone was so annoyed. They would be trying to grab the phone from me: “He will call you back! Rodri, hang up the phone! He has to go now! Bye-bye!”

They wanted to kill me, but I didn’t care. When I leave the pitch, my goal is to always make sure that my feet are on the floor. I think sometimes people misunderstand that part of me. Obviously, as footballers, there is so much marketing and media that you become a kind of character. For me, it’s “the nerd.” I remember I had to do a photo shoot one time, and they said, “Hey, you know what would be cool? Put these books under your arm. Pretend that you’re going to the library.” 

When the photos came out, I had my friends from school texting me, “Come onnnn, man. Are you serious? What is this s***? You don’t even like to read! You’re not a real nerd!” 

Don’t always believe what you see on social media! Reality is always more complicated. 

We have been very blessed the last few years with City, but it’s not real life. In the good moments, you don’t learn, you just enjoy. In the bad moments, when you truly suffer, that’s when you really grow. I remember after the ’21 Champions League final against Chelsea, I walked back into the little family area, and when I saw my parents and my brothers, I literally couldn’t speak. It was like I was 10 years old again, at the kitchen table. I couldn’t say a word. I just thought: I never want to feel this feeling again. I have to work harder. I have to find a way to be better.

Now that we are champions, and we are on top of the world, no one asks me about that moment back in ’21. But it’s probably one of the most important in my life. Behind every good moment, there is a lifetime of struggle and experience. 

Even when I scored the goal in the Champions League final in 2023, it was not a “calculation.” It was a feeling, from 20 years of football, since I was playing in the garden. The second before Bernardo put in the cross, I was actually very far away from the play. On the TV replay, you can’t even see me. There was really no chance of the ball coming to me. I should have stayed still. But I took one step forward toward the box. I don’t know why. I wasn’t thinking about it. Because nine times out of 10 — maybe 99 times out of 100 — when Bernardo crosses the ball, it’s not going to come my way. 

But this voice told me, “This time is going to be the one time.” 

I took a step forward. The ball was deflected. If I don’t take that one step, it’s already too late. 

I saw the ball bouncing toward me. 

And I can tell you everything that flashed through my mind:

It’s here. What do I do?
Hit it hard — boomba
OK, but wait. You will probably have one chance all game.
Just get it on target.
You’re out in the garden.
Just pass the ball into the net.
It’s here. Pass it.

It happened just like that, in a flash. When the ball went in, I ran off and did a knee slide in front of our fans, and then I remember my first thought after that was: 20 minutes. 20 more minutes. F****** hell. Long way.

That’s the mind of a No. 6. 

We suffered for those 20 minutes, and then the whistle blew. That’s the feeling that I have been chasing all my life. The joy that I felt was not at all about scoring the goal. It was about suffering for 90 minutes as a team and winning. It was about securing the treble for our fans — who have supported me from the day that I came here. It was about seeing the smiles on the faces of the kids in City scarves. Hugging my family and saying, “We f****** did it.” 

That is the drug. That is why you play football. 

At the Euros, it was the same. It was poetic in a way for me, because I had to watch the second half of the final from the sidelines. For once, I was not in control. Before the tournament started, I challenged myself to be more of a leader. I am not the oldest guy in the dressing room, but we have some young (Very young! Scary young!) guys from a new generation, and I felt that I could help them with the pressures of such a big moment. When I think about what Lamine and Nico achieved this summer, it makes me so happy. To step up in a moment like that with your whole country watching — at 17, at 22 — it’s unbelievable. If they knew how I was living at their age, their minds would probably explode. 

When I was on the sidelines for the second half of the final, the only sensation that I can compare it to is being in a car driving 200 kilometers per hour. When your hands are at the wheel and you’re in control, you feel nothing. But when you’re in the passenger’s seat, you feel like you’re on a rollercoaster. 

When we scored the goal in the 85th minute, I think I ran faster down to Mikel Oyarzabal than I ran when I was on the pitch in the first half. 

When you win for your country, it is a different kind of emotion. I was taken back to my roots, when I was playing in the pool, then playing in the garden, then back in the pool again. When I was taking my bike onto the tram to go to training. When I was running around the woods in Connecticut crying tears of joy when we won the World Cup. 

You realize that you have not just made a city happy, but an entire country. So many different people. So many different generations. A whole new generation, experiencing that joy for the first time. How many of those kids ran around like crazy the night that Lamine scored against France? Or when Mikel scored against England? Thousands. Millions. 

“¡¡¡¡¡jajajajajajajaja!!!! ¡Viva España!”

I know the feeling. Pure joy. 

With all due respect to books and economics and accounting…. There is only one thing that touches the heart like that. Only football can do it. 

Thank God for our parents for making us study, eh? 

Thank God for football for making us dream.