Rodri to undergo back surgery in Madrid on Monday as Santiago Bernabeu transfer gathers pace | OneFootball

Manchester City midfielder Rodri is set to undergo surgery on a back issue on Monday morning at a clinic in Madrid, dealing a significant fresh blow to the club ahead of the 2026-27 campaign, as per a new report from Spain.

The 30-year-old had been one of the defining figures of the FIFA World Cup in North America, winning the Golden Ball and leading Spain to their second World Cup title with a commanding 1-0 victory over Argentina in Sunday’s final in New Jersey – performances that appeared to have put his long run of injury struggles firmly behind him.

His return from the tournament has instead been overshadowed by this fresh setback, with no timetable for his recovery yet confirmed, casting significant doubt over his availability for Manchester City’s opening fixtures of the new season.

The news arrives at a particularly complex moment for City, with the midfielder’s contract situation at the Etihad Stadium still unresolved and a cluster of elite clubs – including Real Madrid, PSG and Barcelona – understood to have been circling in the background ahead of the window’s final weeks.

Rodri’s injury history has been an unhappy one since an ACL rupture in September 2024 kept him sidelined for approximately 220 days, with the World Cup having been viewed as the first sustained evidence of a full return to the dominant form that earned him the Ballon d’Or later that year.

Report: Surgery confirmed for Monday as City face uncertain recovery timeline

According to journalist @Rodra10_97 of ESPN, Rodri will undergo the surgery on Monday morning at a clinic in Madrid, with the specific nature of the back issue and the expected recovery period not yet publicly confirmed by either the player or Manchester City.

The Athletic’s Sam Lee and Guillermo Rai subsequently confirmed the surgery, adding that no concrete return timetable would be established until the procedure had been completed and assessed by the medical staff involved.

City’s 2026-27 season opens with the Community Shield against Arsenal in South Wales on August 16, before the Premier League campaign begins at the Etihad Stadium against Bournemouth on August 23 – fixtures that appear highly unlikely to feature Rodri given the surgical procedure he is now set to undergo.

The Manchester derby against Manchester United on September 13 and the visit to Anfield to face Liverpool on October 10 are also at significant risk, pending a recovery timeline that the medical teams will only be able to provide once the surgery has been completed on Monday morning.

What does Rodri’s surgery mean for Manchester City?

The blow is considerable for Enzo Maresca, who had been working on the assumption that the Ballon d’Or winner would be available to anchor his midfield as the new era at the Etihad Stadium begins – a central figure around whom the rest of the squad’s reconstruction has been planned.

The £116 million arrival of Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest provides some mitigation, though Anderson’s profile as a box-to-box midfielder rather than a defensive anchor means the specific void Rodri leaves when unavailable remains one of the most difficult in the sport to fill on a like-for-like basis.

For director of football Hugo Viana, the injury will intensify the urgency around any outstanding midfield business in the remaining weeks of the window, with the club’s plans for the position now requiring reassessment in light of an absence whose length will only become clear once Monday’s surgery is complete.

The timing also adds an entirely new dimension to Rodri’s transfer situation – with the clubs pursuing him now facing an additional layer of medical uncertainty on top of the contractual and financial complexity that had already made the situation one of the summer’s most consequential unresolved questions.