{"id":782061,"date":"2026-07-24T15:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/782061\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:40:09","slug":"rodri-injury-man-city-and-spain-star-to-have-back-surgery-as-enzo-maresca-brushes-off-transfer-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/782061\/","title":{"rendered":"Rodri injury: Man City and Spain star to have back surgery as Enzo Maresca brushes off transfer speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Cup winner Rodri will have surgery on a back issue on Monday, new Manchester City<\/a> boss Enzo Maresca has confirmed.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old Spain captain guided his country to World Cup glory last week and was named the Golden Ball winner as player of the tournament.<\/p>\n

But the midfielder’s last two seasons at club level were heavily disrupted – an anterior cruciate ligament injury leaving him sidelined for the majority of the 2024-25 campaign before several setbacks last season meant he was often unavailable.<\/p>\n

The Ballon d’Or winner was back to his best at the World Cup but, speaking at his first news conference since being appointed City boss,<\/a> Maresca said Rodri now needs surgery followed by recuperation.<\/p>\n

“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 coach said.<\/p>\n

Maresca did not elaborate on when Rodri might return though he did dismiss speculation around the Spaniard’s future at Etihad Stadium following reports in the past week linking him with a move to Real Madrid.<\/p>\n

“Around big players there are always speculations so I am not worried about that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Of other players still to return, Maresca said he expected to have them in the squad three or four days before City face Premier League champions Arsenal<\/a> in the Community Shield on Sunday, 16 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World Cup winner Rodri will have surgery on a back issue on Monday, new Manchester City boss Enzo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-782061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}