{"id":80564,"date":"2026-09-04T10:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/80564\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T10:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:43:15","slug":"barcelona-has-made-a-key-decision-on-new-signing-rodri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/80564\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona Has Made A Key Decision On New Signing Rodri"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rodri<\/a> is set to make his starting debut for FC Barcelona this weekend against Valencia, or when the Catalans host Feyenoord in the Champions League on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Barca pulled off a major coup in the summer transfer window by convincing Spain’s World Cup-winning captain and Golden Ball recipient at the tournament to choose them over Real Madrid.<\/p>\n

A final fee<\/a> of \u20ac60 million up front with another \u20ac11.5 million in add-ons was also shrewd business from Sporting Director Deco, even though Rodri had less than a year left on his Manchester City contract.<\/p>\n

Whatever the circumstances, the 30-year-old is now Culer. He’s already racked up minutes against Athletic Club (27) and Rayo Vallecano (26), in respective 2-0 and 5-2 wins at the Spotify Camp Nou.<\/p>\n

As you might have guessed, or will already know, those outings were cameos off the bench where Rodri had time to gel with his new teammates including – most importantly – Spain compadre Pedri<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still at the peak of his powers, though, as he demonstrated at the World Cup, a former Ballon d’Or winner like Rodri won’t accept a secondary role to the likes of Marc Bernal for too long.<\/p>\n

But sure, he’ll need to sit some fixtures out just like Pedri if Barca want to retain the La Liga title for the third time – and first since the Pep Guardiola<\/a> era – while also making a deep run in the Champions League.<\/p>\n

Rodri is expected to make his starting Barcelona debut in the next few days<\/p>\n

With this in mind, Rodri could make his starting debut in Blaugrana as early as Sunday, when the Catalans travel to the Mestalla to take on Valencia.<\/p>\n

As Real Madrid faces Real Betis<\/a> away on Friday night, a win for Flick’s men could be vital for staying level on points with Jose Mourinho’s outfit.<\/p>\n

If Rodri’s start doesn’t come then, Feyenoord in an early 18.45 kick off should definitely be when he gets the nod.<\/p>\n

As indicated, this will probably come at the expense of Barcelona academy graduate Bernal, as Rodri partners Pedri and either Dani Olmo<\/a> or Fermin Lopez<\/a> is a CAM ahead of them.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on Forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rodri is set to make his starting debut for FC Barcelona this weekend against Valencia, or when the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[549,92,26986,2179,4969,29184,664,1102,95],"class_list":["post-80564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barca","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-academy","tag-bernal","tag-catalans","tag-feyenoord","tag-pedri","tag-rodri","tag-valencia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}