Pep Guardiola underscores gulf between Rodri’s Ballon d’Or and post-ACL levels | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has provided valuable insight into how far Ballon d’Or winner Rodri remains from his flawless best as the midfielder collects more minutes after returning from injury.

Rodri has started back-to-back games for Manchester City in the space of five days, with City recovering from their early season slump with consecutive wins over Manchester United and Napoli after the international break.

The 29-year-old spent nine months on the sidelines last season after sustaining an ACL injury against Arsenal in September 2024, only making his long-awaited return to action against Bournemouth in May, when he replaced Erling Haaland in the closing stages of Kevin De Bruyne’s final home appearance at the Etihad Stadium.

Manchester City missed their midfield anchor to an extent that can be best adhered to be the gaping hold in the middle of the park left by Rodri’s absence, with the Spain international picking up the Ballon d’Or on crutches in Paris in November 2024.

After getting some minutes in the locker at the FIFA Club World Cup in the United States this summer, Rodri suffered an unfortunate fitness setback that delayed his recovery and return to full fitness, with the Spaniard missing City’s opening Premier League game of the season against Wolves.

A substitute appearance in a 2-0 defeat at home to Tottenham was followed by Rodri’s first start for Manchester City in just under a year against Brighton at the Amex Stadium and though City relinquished a one goal lead to shoot themselves in the foot in the south coast, Rodri received huge plaudits for his five-star display in midfield.

The 29-year-old was also pivotal on Sunday as Manchester City ripped local rivals Manchester United to shreds, with a 60 minute appearance against Napoli on Thursday also suggesting that Rodri is edging closer to his pre-ACL fitness levels.

However, Guardiola has maintained that there is a long way to go for Rodri to truly return to the player that won the first Ballon d’Or at the Etihad Stadium a year ago, speaking in a press conference after City’s 2-0 win over Napoli in the UEFA Champions League.

“Not yet. Confidence he (Rodri) has because he has his own self-confidence, so so high,” Guardiola said.

“Always I learned with the greatest, greatest players I ever trained in my managerial career – even as a football player – what I see is here (in the mind). And here they are incredibly self-confident and Rodri is that.

“But the knee is completely different to how you think. And the knee needs his (Rodri’s) process. As much as he’s patient with that, and we are patient with him, he will be back, because he’s being there in the middle, knowing exactly to read exactly what we have to do, Rodri is on another level.

“It’s a bit like Phil (Foden), what we talked about before, last season and the best player in the world, it was Rodri and we didn’t have it. So having him back is important and we try to not do what happened in the States – where he was injured again, and injured again, and injured again. And that will be more difficult for all of us, for him to come back to his best.”

Guardiola will want to manage Rodri’s minutes very carefully as the season progresses and having taken off the midfielder after an hour against Napoli in mid-week, it remains to be seen whether the former Atletico Madrid man starts against Arsenal on Sunday.