Rodri, in AS: “We have a better team than Real Madrid”

TO Rodrigo Hernández Cascante (23 years old) It cost him more to leave Atleti, the team that gave him everything, than to settle in Manchester City, not an easy task. It is a fixture for Guardiola as it was for Simeone, and of all that, from the return of the Champions against Madrid or the National Team he spoke in AS Futbolería (AS TV).

How are you, now that football is back?

I am happy to return to the routine, to leave a little behind all this period that has become so long for everyone. Those of us who are football fans are filled with joy and, of course, those of us who are dedicated to it.

After signing for City, Guardiola praised him for his football and his appearance. He even wears the shirt inside, pristine!

It is true that it is common ground, at least in the Spanish, that we are not very striking, although the important thing about a good midfield is what you develop in the field. I am having a lot of luck in my still short career, being trained by Simeone and Guardiola, because both have played in that position and they transmit it like no one else. I am a sponge that learns from each one. That they see me like this at such a young age is incredible.

His adaptation has been meteoric, and that requires a lot of Pep. He's even scoring more goals, which is something he was asked for for his potential.

You have to carry the adaptation, the challenge and the motivation inside, knowing the great bet the club has made for you. I never thought you could pay that amount (€ 70M). He was very clear that he had to be on day one, despite everything that was discussed with the European Under-21. It was a very difficult and painful decision, but I wanted to do my best. I was coming to a winning team and I had to make a hole for myself, earn the coach's trust and know, above all, what I could give the team. When you surround yourself with these players, everything is easier, but it always penalizes you a little at first to go to a new league, advance blindly in the first games because you don't know what the pace is like. It took me a couple of weeks to get the hang of it, but little by little I got to the rhythm of both the team and the Premier.

Simeone and Guardiola, in terms of method, are night and day. Do you notice

Many people think that they are opposite poles and that they have nothing to do, but I see similarities: they are very intense, very hard-working, they make you do your best every day, they take training as if it were competition because it is an opportunity to learn, they love you 100%, pending. From there, each one has his way of understanding football and transmitting it, and the latter seems to me the most difficult. I am lucky because the work of both of them has completed me as a player.

You could say that they are the best attackers and the best defenders. They want to win, but their path to it is different.

There are different ways of understanding what is the best way to attack and defend. Simeone interprets that it is to have the lines together, to be clothed, with physical players, and thus it is very difficult for the opponent to penetrate. With Guardiola, the idea, and I agree, is that the best way to defend is to have the ball because, by the nose, the rival is not attacking you. Your goal is the same.

Have you dreamed or thought about going back to Atleti?

To be honest, I don't know where I will be in the future, like when I came out as a child, who did not think I would return. The conditions for it must be given, but in its day it was a dream to return to where I always dreamed of debuting, which is my home. You are here and there, but you feel the colors in one way or another. I was lucky to play in a team that really felt, that has given me everything, and it was not easy to leave. I never rule out going back because it is a unique club and, when you are there, you see the dimension it has, that hobby …

At Atleti I thought what to do without the ball and at City what to do with it.

Yes, and also each game is a world, you do not always pose it the same, it also depends on the state of the players, if there is confidence … I have specific characteristics and I play my football with one or the other, I do not know how to do it differently: , always want the ball, always be a solution for the centrals and connect them with the media. My role has not changed much since Atleti: driving, being deep, adding passes, playing on the opposite field …

Among the references in his position are Redondo and Schuster. Have you seen them?

Not live, because of age. I am from the generations of Vieira, Makélélé … These are a little earlier, but seeing the images it shows that they had something different. It is more difficult to make a difference now than it was back then.

Do you prefer to play solo or double pivot in the middle?

I have been in 4-4-2 for a long time and I think that what most exploits my qualities is pivot. It coincided that in the Atleti youth team and in Villarreal it was established 4-4-2, it had always played like this. Then, in the City and in the National Team there were the first years in which I played as a pivot.

Do you like that 4-3-3 better then?

Yes. It is true that for that system you need the two interiors to be very reaching, with a goal and to step on the area, because you sacrifice a striker. If not, sometimes you have more the ball, you do not get as much and you are not as effective.

CIES has positioned him as the most expensive Spanish in the world (€ 101.5M). Has it reached you?

I take it with a little humor and perspective. I never imagined it to be, but I see it as a fact. It also makes you see where you have been able to get in this short time and that you are above idols as a child, like Ramos. I know you like to lace it, but it doesn't matter to us.

But does he come to the locker room and say, 'hey, look what I cost'? (laughs)

Is that if I do that in this locker room they will tell me “I cost 150; I …”. Sterling will come to me, De Bruyne … and they will tell me where I am going. They are all stars and seeing you involved, surrounding yourself with them, only adds up, it makes you grow. The market has also gone a bit crazy, with very inflated prices.

With all those stars, are you encouraged with any percentage for the return against Madrid?

No, because last year it looked like it was shot and in the end you don't even go through a tie with a 2-0, you never know what can happen. I don't trust Madrid, even though we won 1-2. It is Madrid and far from it is sentenced. We have a better team and we showed it in the first leg, but there is one step to take. Respecting the rival, we have to go for the victory because, if not, we will get confused.

Eliminate Madrid, for what it would mean sportingly and symbolically, would make them favorites?

That's up to the people, it doesn't give you an advantage. Eliminating Madrid, which won three Champions in a row and has been so powerful in recent years in Europe, would give morale and confidence to say that it can be done. But there are great teams in Europe, not just Madrid. It would be a first step. The return is over, with an important handicap, which is that we cannot count on our followers.

Are they specially prepared for it?

No. It is a circumstance that occurs and we know that it will be played like this. This Wednesday we will have our first test, to see how it feels. With an audience and without an audience it makes it totally different, it is not the same without the tension generated by being in a stadium with people who squeeze. It will be on a neutral field and we will notice it, but we will adapt. There are ten games ahead to see what feelings we have and face the tie with the best guarantees, with the maximum illusion, knowing that the Champions is a different competition.

Why?

Normally the best does not win, other factors influence such as scoring that final goal at the key moment, doing it away from home … It is not like the League, in which you have to be more regular. The Champions is who controls all those little details.

He is privileged to work with Guardiola, a coach who prepares matches to the extreme. How was it at the Bernabéu?

It is special for me as a player to be able to live these impressive matches, so competitive at the Bernabéu, with all that that entails, against the champion, so to speak. Preparation is tactical, mental, physical, taking care of every detail because it is where you play all the beans. You come from several days with the rush that the game is there, it is getting closer and you feel those tickles, which are sometimes good, that it begins. Sometimes the expectation for a game is so great that you need to focus and stay cold. They are unique moments, that you try to enjoy. I have had two, with Atleti against Juve, and now, against Madrid. Being in eighths, it is not easy, I could have played an easier one.

Which Madrid player would 'sign' for City? Sterling told Modric.

Joe, well, I'd tell you the same, really. It marks the differences, it has marked them during all these years. It is true that he is getting older and it is not the same, but in full fitness he is unique. It is a total half-center, not only capable of distributing and exercising as such, but of breaking lines with that driving and that snatch. In addition, he has vision, hitting, arrival …

How is Kun, who is now a gamer? (laughs)

I coincided with him when I was a youth squad, I saw him and he seemed amazing, a striker like there have been few. Like Lewandowski, one of those who can end their careers with 400 goals. It's in their blood. When we are training it seems that not long ago, it does not move and it makes you pam and mess it up for you. In games, the same. It is fortunate to have these types of players, the ones who make the difference. I get along very well with him, we have a good relationship.

In the City there are many pull-pipes, like Bernardo Silva, who was in La Futbolería recently.

They are so small and I am so big … They almost got between your legs. Here there are players with such quality that you have to be careful. They make you one and remind you of it all day. Kun loves to throw them away. The other day I told him that he had not done it and in two training sessions he tried four.

What do you feel with the return of the Premier: illusion, anxiety even …?

Since we don't play much, you don't face it the same way, but we are going to have to start 100%, especially to take shape for the games in which we play something.

Can it help you prepare for the Champions League?

Yes, totally. We have to secure the Champions first, we have margin. The teams that best reach these heats, and especially if it is finally a single match, will be 100%, and that gives you the rhythm of your competition. In the Premier, for good and for bad, one day you play against Arsenal, another against Chelsea, another against Liverpool … It could perfectly be a Champions League tie. It will help us a lot to know where we are.

In the National Team he is very close to ownership. Do you see it at eleven?

Wearing the national team shirt is a pride, from the bottom it has been incredible. I know that I have before me a player who has been everything, a benchmark; perhaps, if it were not Busi (Busquets) it would have been more protagonist. At no time do I want to accelerate or lose patience, we feed back and try to learn a lot from him. Until then I can only do my best. We are in a very good moment in the National Team, there has been a new cycle since the last World Cup and I am looking forward to doing beautiful things.

How has your confinement been? It has no networks, and neither does Play …

If I have. I'm not very Play, but I have no other choice. I returned to Madrid when the confinement began and with my brothers … Although more than the Play, we have been in the garden with the ball, we are very football fans. I have not stopped playing, this is how I kill the hours. I have also used a little to advance with the race.

Study ADE, right?

Yes, and I took the opportunity to squeeze like an animal because now they do the exams online, without having to go to Castellón.

It is very rare for a footballer to study and, above all, to go all the way.

I have five or six subjects left. It is not easy, you have to do your part, have a will, it requires sacrifices. It also depends on the people around you, who tell you what is good, and I have always had people who have advised me well. I have never neglected studies, also because it has helped me to have more things in my life, other than 24-hour football. I'm not saying that you have to study a career, but at least getting a baccalaureate is essential, especially because you are someone public and you need that training for the people who follow you, who admire you and who you have to know how to transmit those values.