You may have seen Pep Guardiola’s prophetic statement from last October.“At the World Cup will be the best Rodri and next season will be the best Rodri,” he said during the Spain midfielder’s ongoing recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament injury in his right knee that, in the end, kept him out of action for around 15 months.He returned to action for Manchester City, properly, in January, and reminded everybody what had been missing. It was immediately apparent how much better the team played when he was in it, and that remained the case until the end of the season in May, and yet he was still not at his very best.In fact, there have been figures around City, who, like all of those spoken to for this article by The Athletic, asked to be kept anonymous to protect relationships, and even around the Spain camp this summer, that doubted whether the 2023 Ballon d’Or winner could get back to his previous standards.Perhaps all that was required was the kind of patience Guardiola had highlighted. On Sunday, Rodri will lead Spain out in the World Cup final against Argentina, having steadily improved throughout the tournament, to the point where we may now be witnessing a return to his very highest level.His commanding performances had already caught the attention. Yet the contribution he made to Spain’s comprehensive 2-0 victory over France in Tuesday’s semi-final really stood out, not just in terms of his quality on the ball and his understanding of the game, but the mobility that had been the subject of some doubt heading into the summer.Guardiola was talking at a time when Rodri was champing at the bit to get back into action, while the club’s medical experts were fighting to, effectively, save him from himself. Months earlier, he had returned to action in the Club World Cup in June, making four appearances just eight months after sustaining the injury in a Premier League match against Arsenal in September 2024.That had disrupted his return to full fitness, which did not come until the new year. During the autumn, Rodri regularly pushed to make himself available for action and was visibly frustrated when told he needed to wait. The 30-year-old opted against strengthening his leg muscles via weight training, believing, as some sportspeople do, that the best way to recover is through playing matches.Rodri improved over the final few months of the season (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)The injury and his recovery from it have provided an interesting backdrop to his immediate club future. His contract at City expires next summer, and the club have been doing everything they can to get him to sign a new one. So far, they have not made much progress, but they plan to speak to him again after the World Cup.Rodri has been regularly linked with Real Madrid. He has long been open to playing at the Santiago Bernabeu, but the noises coming from various levels at the Spanish club could not be clearer: they have no intention of signing him. People close to Rodri have expressed surprise in the past that Madrid have not shown an interest in him.Sources close to Enrique Riquelme, who lost the presidential election to Florentino Perez, insist he wanted to sign for the club and would have done had Riquelme taken control. Madrid are not happy that Rodri’s name has been constantly linked to them this summer, but sources close to some senior players at Madrid have spoken about how good his signing would be.