Rodri to Undergo Back Surgery as City Begins New Era Under Maresca

Enzo Maresca’s first significant act as Manchester City manager is not a signing, a tactical statement, or a bold declaration of intent. It is confirmation that his most influential midfielder is heading for the operating table.

Rodri, fresh from lifting the World Cup with Spain and collecting the Golden Ball as the tournament’s outstanding player, will undergo surgery on a back problem on Monday.

The timing is as stark as it is symbolic. The man who has come to define control in midfield, who just guided his country to the summit of the international game, now has to stop.

From global peak to operating room

At 30, Rodri should be at the height of his powers. His World Cup performances suggested exactly that: authority on the ball, clarity without it, and the familiar sense that matches bend to his tempo.

Yet beneath that dominance lies a body that has taken a pounding.

His last two seasons at club level have been repeatedly disrupted. An anterior cruciate ligament injury ruled him out for the majority of the 2024–25 campaign, a brutal interruption for a player whose game is built on rhythm and repetition. When he did return, several setbacks last season meant he was often unavailable, never quite able to string together the sustained run of games that once made him City’s metronome.

In Qatar, he looked like the old Rodri again. At City, Maresca knows he must now protect that version.

“Now, [he has] surgery on Monday. Then he needs a holiday, he needs to rest and recover and then he will be back with us,” the Italian said at his first news conference since taking the job.

No return date. No detailed medical bulletin. Just a clear message: reset first, football later.

Maresca’s first big problem

For a new manager stepping into one of the most demanding roles in European football, starting without your Ballon d'Or-winning midfielder is a serious complication.

Rodri is not just another name on the teamsheet. He is the structural pillar around which City have built their possession game in recent years. Without him, patterns change, responsibilities shift, and the margin for error narrows.

Maresca did not disguise the scale of the player’s importance, but he chose to lean on calm rather than concern. The priority, for now, is to get Rodri fully right rather than rush him back into the grind that broke him down in the first place.

City’s medical and coaching staff will know that this period could define the next phase of his career. Manage it well, and they might get three or four more peak seasons from him. Misjudge it, and the stop-start pattern of the last two years could become permanent.

Real Madrid links brushed aside

The injury story arrives against a familiar backdrop: speculation.

Reports over the past week have linked Rodri with a move to Real Madrid, a predictable narrative given his World Cup heroics and Spain’s triumph. A Spanish captain, a World Cup and Golden Ball winner, a club in Madrid that never stops thinking about the next galáctico – the storyline almost writes itself.

Maresca, though, cut it down quickly.

“Around big players there are always speculations so I am not worried about that,” he said. “I think it is normal, also because they [Spain] won the World Cup and because he is one of the best players. I think every manager wants to have Rodri because he is a top player.”

No hint of doubt. No suggestion City are bracing for a bid. Just a firm acceptance that this is the noise that comes with elite talent.

For now, the only move on Rodri’s horizon is from the treatment room to a well-earned holiday.

City’s next test

The challenge for Maresca is clear. He must launch his City tenure, implement his ideas, and keep the club competitive while his most trusted on-field organiser recovers from back surgery.

Rodri will disappear from the day-to-day picture for a while. He will rest, rehabilitate, and rebuild, away from the intensity he has lived in for years.

When he does walk back into the Etihad dressing room, Maresca will hope to see the same player who just conquered the world with Spain – but in a body finally given the chance to heal.