On Sunday afternoon,\u00a0Rodri and his Spanish teammates will be at the center of the world, playing for the World Cup title before 82,000 fans at\u00a0MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and over a billion viewers around the globe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But 16 years ago, as a previous generation of Spanish superstars vied for their country’s first World Cup crown, the Madrid native was about as far from home as he’d ever been. The 14-year-old future midfielder was spending the summer at a camp in rural Connecticut and squinted into a 10-inch handheld television he obtained after pleading with his camp counselor, breaking out into celebratory tears that baffled his fellow New England campers as Iniesta fired a 116th-minute winner into the bottom corner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rodri arrived in Connecticut already well-established on the Spanish football radar, having joined the academy of 11-time La Liga champions Atletico Madrid. His summer in the Nutmeg State was designed to improve his English skills, and his family landed at Incarnation Camp’s Pioneer Village, a few miles from the Connecticut River in Deep River and the oldest co-ed, continually operated camp in the United States.
\u00a0
The star defensive midfielder recalled his experience at Incarnation Camp in a 2024 article published by The Player’s Tribune<\/a>, where he was surprised to find that the summer camp spectacle he’d seen in Hollywood movies was faithfully recreated in Connecticut. Large ponds, wooden canoes, s’mores and even the state’s name \u2014 “Conn-et-ee-cut” \u2014 screamed America to Rodri.\u00a0<\/p>\n