Rodri Faces Injury Setback After Golden Ball Triumph
Rodri faces the prospect of another cruel pause in a career that had just roared back to life.
Days after lifting the World Cup with Spain in New Jersey and collecting the Golden Ball as the tournament’s outstanding player, the Manchester City midfielder is staring at an extended spell on the sidelines with a back injury that could require surgery and is expected to keep him out at the start of the new season.
For a player who had finally looked like himself again on the biggest stage, the timing is brutal.
From Golden Ball to operating table?
At 30, Rodri arrived at this World Cup with questions hanging over him. Two seasons of interruptions, setbacks and slow rebuilds had dulled the aura of the midfielder who once seemed indestructible at the heart of City’s machine.
Over the past month, he answered all of that. He captained Spain with authority, dictated games with the old assurance and then, on Sunday, held the trophy aloft after a 1-0 win over Argentina in the final. The Golden Ball underlined what the eyes already knew: he had been the tournament’s standard-bearer.
Now comes another fight. The back issue, long a concern in the background, has worsened to the point where an operation is on the table and an absence at the beginning of the club season looks inevitable.
A body that won’t let him breathe
This is not an isolated blow but the latest chapter in a punishing stretch.
It began with the ruptured anterior cruciate ligament he suffered in a 2–2 draw with Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium in September 2024, a moment that ripped him out of City’s season just as it was taking shape. That injury cost him most of that campaign.
When he finally returned, the momentum didn’t last. He picked up another injury at the Club World Cup last July, cutting short his involvement there. Last season turned into a jigsaw of comebacks and breakdowns: hamstring problems, then groin trouble, each one slicing away at his rhythm. In the Premier League, he managed only 17 starts.
For a player whose game is built on control, continuity and constant availability, those numbers tell their own story.
City future clouded by injury and uncertainty
The back problem lands at a delicate moment for both player and club.
Rodri’s contract at Manchester City runs out next June, and there has been no resolution yet. He has long spoken of a desire to play again in Spain at some stage of his career and is understood to favour a move to Real Madrid if he does return home. So far, though, Madrid have not turned that admiration into a concrete move.
Inside City, the hope is clear. Enzo Maresca, newly installed in the dugout, wants him to stay and to build his midfield around a fully fit Rodri. That plan now sits in the hands of medical specialists and the player’s own body.
Every week he misses at the start of the season will sharpen the questions: can City afford to lose him on a free next summer? Can he trust his body enough to commit his peak years to a club where the demands are relentless?
“When you go down, you can rise again”
If there is any consolation for City and Spain, it lies in Rodri’s mindset.
Speaking after Spain’s World Cup triumph, he did not hide from how hard the past two years have been. “For me, it’s been a very tough time,” he said, a simple line that carried the weight of repeated rehab rooms and lonely training sessions.
“I just want the new generations to see my example as an opportunity. When you go down, you can rise again. This is my philosophy for my entire life. Of course, sometimes things go well, things go wrong, but always the positiveness.”
Those words sounded like the closing chapter of an ordeal, a man who had walked through the storm and emerged with the trophy to prove it. Instead, they may yet become the manifesto for another comeback.
The Golden Ball showed the level he can still reach. The back injury will decide how long the world has to wait to see it again in City blue — and where, ultimately, the next act of his career will be played.
