The Secret Behind Manchester City's Success against Liverpool: Rodri's Unique Prediction for the Future of the Game

The image shows Gaston Mourino of Argentina and Tobias Grondahl of Norway battling for the ball during the men's Handball Preliminary Round - Group B match between Norway and Argentina at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. The event took place at South Paris Arena 6 on July 27, 2024, in Paris, France.

“They stay all across their own area, just blocking. They don’t try to man-mark, they just stand there.

“In my opinion, it’s a mess, but we see now that when a team feels they’re maybe worse than the other, they are so defensive with almost 11 players in the box. It’s the new football.

“The team that’s defending play counter-attack, and the team trying to open them up are very spread out. That’s how I see football in the future.

“Even between two big teams, it used to be that the game was open, but now it doesn’t matter if the level of the two teams is similar. When they defend, they move back.”

He has seen his fair share of defensive blocks in his time, so is uniquely placed to make the parallel. What is true it is that there seems to be fewer end-to-end games in the Premier League now.

Rodri, ranked No.1 in FourFourTwo's Best Players in the World Right Now list, tends to agree and as a result, there’s a particular fixture he relishes. “I enjoy most of the games we play against Liverpool. It’s great, because we think, ‘I don’t care, I want to punish you’ [in attack], and they have the same feeling. They’re not conservative, they go with the same mentality.”

In FourFourTwo's opinion, the Liverpool comment could be Rodri's way of throwing shade at Arsenal's negative tactics at The Etihad in September, the game in which Rodri sustained his season-ending ACL injury.

He will be devastated not to be involved on Sunday, don't expect it to be anything like a handball match.

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