{"id":56042,"date":"2025-10-20T20:44:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T00:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/nico-gonzalez-denies-being-the-rodri-of-manchester-city-there-is-no-comparison\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T20:44:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T00:44:04","slug":"nico-gonzalez-denies-being-the-rodri-of-manchester-city-there-is-no-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/nico-gonzalez-denies-being-the-rodri-of-manchester-city-there-is-no-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Nico Gonz\u00e1lez denies being the &#8220;Rodri&#8221; of Manchester City: There is no comparison"},"content":{"rendered":"The Manchester City midfielder, Nico Gonz\u00e1lez, has made it clear that he does not consider himself a direct replacement for Rodri.\n\nGonz\u00e1lez is ready to continue filling in for his Spanish teammate in the next Champions League match against Villarreal, due to Rodri&#8217;s injury.\n\nRodri suffered a hamstring injury before the recent international break, prolonging his frustration after missing much of last season due to knee surgery.\n\nGonz\u00e1lez, signed from Porto in January to offer support in the central defensive midfielder position, although he enthusiastically accepts Rodri&#8217;s advice &#8220;in every match&#8221;, does not want to be directly compared.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I don&#8217;t watch the news. I don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re talking about.<\/p><cite>Nico Gonz\u00e1lez<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nThe 23-year-old player stated this to the media in a press conference at Villarreal&#8217;s Estadio De la Cer\u00e1mica.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>He is a teammate. It&#8217;s important for the team that he makes us play so well, but I don&#8217;t see any comparison nor do I pay much attention to those things.<\/p><cite>Nico Gonz\u00e1lez<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nGonz\u00e1lez seeks inspiration from Sergio Busquets, a mentor and former Barcelona teammate.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>In Barcelona, when I was young, I used to watch Busquets. When I joined the first team, I played with him and learned a lot from him. Perhaps he is the player I have learned the most from.<\/p><cite>Nico Gonz\u00e1lez<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nRodri has traveled to Villarreal, where he began his professional career, with City, despite not being in a position to play.\n\nCoach Pep Guardiola has no doubt that his influence will impact Gonz\u00e1lez, who feels that he is constantly improving his game.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Hopefully, Rodri will train with him more often again, right? But when he&#8217;s young, of course, a player of Rodri&#8217;s caliber always improves them.<\/p><cite>Pep Guardiola<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nRodri established himself at Villarreal after going through their youth system. He later moved to Atl\u00e9tico Madrid and then joined City in 2019.\n\nVillarreal coach Marcelino said it was &#8220;a shame&#8221; that he didn&#8217;t play.\n\nAdded: &#8220;He is the best player in the world in his position. I am sure he would have loved to play here and the Villarreal fans would have loved to see him. He is admired and loved here.&#8221;","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Manchester City midfielder, Nico Gonz\u00e1lez, has made it clear that he does not consider himself a direct replacement for Rodri. Gonz\u00e1lez is ready to continue filling in for his Spanish teammate in the next Champions League match against Villarreal, due to Rodri&#8217;s injury. Rodri suffered a hamstring injury before the recent international break, prolonging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1200,9452,2652,2493],"class_list":{"0":"post-56042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-soccer","7":"tag-manchester-city","8":"tag-nico-gonzalez","9":"tag-rodri","10":"tag-villarreal"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}