World Cup One to Watch: Rodri - The heir to Busquets' Spain throne
Usually when a player reaches 100 caps they tend to be contemplating retirement from the international game. However, such has been the longevity of Spain’s golden generation, five of their expected squad for the upcoming World Cup will have either surpassed or be aiming to reach that landmark this summer.
Andres Iniesta, at 33, is the oldest of those, and is expected to hang up his boots for La Roja after the tournament but for Sergio Busquets, there are still plenty of years ahead of him. The Barcelona star won’t turn 30 until the day after the final in Russia, but already has 102 caps to his name.
The quality of those in the ranks for the past decade or so has been so high that few have been able to break up the old guard. That much is evident in the fact that Marcos Alonso and Dani Parejo are two of three players hoping to make their international debuts for Spain this week, aged 27 and 28 respectively.
The other, however, does have time on his side to be able rack up a significant number of appearances yet, and it’s Busquets’ position that Villarreal midfielder Rodri will be gunning for. With the blaugrana mainstay ruled out with a broken toe for the marquee friendlies with Germany and Argentina, the youngster will certainly hope for a chance to impress following his first call-up for this week's games.
Indeed, while Spain boast a number of outstanding young midfielders and have done for some time - see the likes of Saul and Marco Asensio - Rodri is the first of a defensive mindset to really look to challenge for that holding role in the side in the years to come.
He has only been a regular in the Villarreal side this season, but while Pablo Fornals - another top Spanish midfield prospect - has taken much of the acclaim, it’s Rodri’s maturity from a deep berth that has deservedly earned the recognition of Julen Lopetegui. He is perhaps the closest thing Spain have had to Sergio Busquets in terms of style and presence in midfield since the Barca graduate broke onto the scene for the LaLiga giants ten years ago.
Rodri is actually marginally taller than the man he will eventually hope to replace in the famous red shirt, standing at 6’3” but occupying a less wiry physique. He’s very strong in the air as a result but still technically gifted enough to dictate proceedings for the Yellow Submarine.
He leads Villarreal by a distance not only in passes per game (65.2) but also accuracy (89.2%), and while both are slightly lower figures than those of Busquets this season, the side that each represent make Rodri’s statistics even more impressive. Barcelona average just over 10% possession more per game than their LaLiga counterparts after all, while their pass accuracy is also vastly superior.
With that in mind, while Busquets is very much of the Barca mould, with 72.8 passes per game at a 91.1% accuracy, Rodri is streaks ahead of most of his clubmates from a passing perspective. With a further 4.5 accurate long balls per game compared to 4.8 from the blaugrana star, the range of the youngster’s passing is also impressive.
His ball winning figures stack up incredibly closely to those of his compatriot eight years his senior too, with 2.6 tackles per game to Busquets' 2.7, and 1.6 interceptions per game to 1.7. So too does his WhoScored.com rating. With a score of 7.22 in the league this season, Rodri might not have reached the Spain mainstays standard (7.28) just yet, but he could be the first true rival for a starting berth at the base of La Roja’s midfield beyond this summer's World Cup.
