The Spanish Rodrigo Hernández, author of the goal that crowned Manchester City champion of the Champions League, assured that he played “like shit”, but that he told himself that he had to get over it and that’s how the winning goal came.
“This is a dream come true,” said Rodri at the BT Sport microphones. “They all deserve it, the players, the fans who have been waiting for this for so many years. And I’ve only been there for four, but we deserve it. Last year we were very close, but when you always get to these rounds, semifinals, final, at the end God gives you this chance.”
“We have faced a great team, they deserve their credit, but my team has given everything. I played like shit, but I told myself that I had to overcome the situation and I scored the goal. It’s incredible”, added the midfielder Spanish.
“The finals are like that, there are a lot of nerves, we didn’t expect anything else. For many of my teammates it was their first final, but we have competed like animals. We have made history, but the good thing is that we want more. Now we have to enjoy ourselves, because these moments do not happen again”, he concluded.
Rodrigo Hernández scored this Saturday the most important goal in the history of Manchester City. Very few come close, perhaps only that of Paul Dickov in May 1999, which led to promotion to the Second Division and which triggered the United Arab Emirates to set its sights on this club years later and decide to shower it with millions.
His shot transforms the club’s history, gives them the second trophy in their showcases, along with the 1970 European Cup Winners’ Cup, and completes a project that began fifteen years ago, when the Abu Dhabi investment fund opted for this team from Northern England in 2008 to brighten his image.
Eleven years after that purchase, Rodrigo Hernández arrived at Manchester City, with the task of learning from Fernandinho and picking up his baton when he left. The Spaniard, after a brilliant spell at Villarreal and a fleeting year at Atlético, lived with the Brazilian for three years and gradually gained the upper hand as Guardiola’s favorite pivot.
The transition was perfect, with only one bump, the Champions League final in 2021, when Guardiola, in a coaching attack, dispensed with both to face Chelsea. The mistake was fatal. Rodri did not play a minute in that final and City lost.
Guardiola did not err again. The man from Madrid has started in all the matches of this Champions League, except for the 5-0 victory against Copenhagen in the group stage, and City has not known defeat in Europe.
A week ago, after winning the FA Cup at Wembley, Rodri, with the medal safely in his backpack, assured that tonight was the most important game of his sports career and recalled Guardiola’s words: “To be great Big, you have to win in Europe.”
His goal represents all of that and confirms him, in the eyes of the whole world, as the best pivot in Spain, even though he later plays as center back in the World Cups.
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