Two cameos, then 90 minutes that shifted everything
Rodri had played 20-odd minutes for Barcelona before Sunday. That was it. Hansi Flick picked the trip to Mestalla to finally hand him a start, and the Spain midfielder spent the night sweeping up in front of the back four like he had been doing it there for years.
Everyone had been asking the same question since he arrived: could the body hold up after a season cut short? He answered it quietly. Positioning, ball recoveries, a clean first pass every time, the line pushed ten yards higher. Pedri got to play further forward as a result, and that single change rewires how this Barca team attacks.
“We are delighted that Rodri is part of our team, and you can see that everything he does with the ball, everything he does on the pitch, makes sense,” Flick said afterwards.
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Seventeen goals in four games and still no centre-forward
The 5-0 at Valencia pushed Barcelona past four goals a game for the season. Four league matches, 17 goals. Nobody in Europe’s big five is scoring at that rate right now.
The missing No 9 has yet to cost them anything. Raphinha is leading the line and finishing, Lamine Yamal looks close to his ceiling again, Anthony Gordon needed weeks rather than months to settle, and Fermin Lopez keeps arriving in the box. Valencia, who have been in trouble since the restart, barely got a touch.
La Liga is not the exam, though. Feyenoord come to the Camp Nou on Wednesday, and that is where a midfielder signed for European nights starts earning his fee.
Catalonia has already delivered its verdict
Mundo Deportivo called him “the signing Barca did not know it needed”, pointing to the control of games they have got back. Sport went harder, writing that Rodri had “killed the debate in a flash” while noting his real worth will only show up in the knockout rounds.
One match. That is the sample size behind all of it.
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