Although Real Madrid fans should be welcoming in Yan Diomande and celebrating the renewal of superstar Vinicius Junior on the left wing, the big story around the Santiago Bernabeu right now is the rejection of Rodri. And while a true person dreaming of Real Madrid would have rather stayed pat and waited a year at their current club before joining for free or went literally anywhere else but bitter rivals Barcelona, the narrative that Rodri rejected Real for Barca feels incomplete.
Because the truth is, while Florentino Perez seemed to have changed his mind due to pressure from the fans and those key executives around him at the club, plus Jose Mourinho desperately wanting the Ballon d'Or winning No. 6 to anchor his midfield, he didn't exactly show real urgency in signing the player.
Real Madrid had weeks to negotiate, in addition to all those months that they had to talk to Manchester City about a Rodri deal from the time when the Spanish international proclaimed his desire to join Real Madrid in public back in March - and never once made the slightest wink at Barcelona until the very end.
Florentino Perez did not value Rodri
The reality is that Real Madrid and Florentino came nowhere close to agreeing on the financial terms Manchester City wanted. The Citizens wanted around 75 million euros for Rodri, whereas Real Madrid were offering significantly less, only around 50 million euros.
That's the real difference. Look, Jose Mourinho successfully convinced Florentino Perez to go for Bernardo Silva despite years of rejecting that Manchester City midfielder, but Silva was free this summer. So that's probably why Florentino accepted, because the risk of signing him was minimal.
Rodri had one year left on his deal, is about to undergo back surgery after already being an injury risk, and was simply not someone Florentino wanted to overpay for. He isn't a big fan of Rodri's, he sees an injury risk with no resale value at the age of 30, and he did not think that the World Cup alone was enough to convince him to overpay for Rodri; it was just enough for Florentino to actually show any interest in the first place.
Yes, it hurts seeing that Barcelona are about to be the ones to benefit from the best No. 6 on the planet, but Real Madrid were not 100 percent burned by Rodri. He did stab them in the back by taking anything from Barcelona, but he was never a true Madridista anyway and fans have to get that out of their heads. Because the crux of the issue is that Florentino did not truly want Rodri.
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