He was far from complimentary about Scotland - which is why it might be surprising to see Rodri speak of opposition respect.
Scottish football can be a tribal place but the nation was united behind criticism of the Spanish midfielder in the wake of Steve Clarke's side sweeping Las Rojas aside 2-0 at Hampden. The Manchester City enforcer will hope to avoid a similar shock at Wembley as Pep Guardiola's side face Championship outfit Sheffield United in the FA Cup semi-final.
And speaking to the Daily Telegraph , he insists that he aims to hand out respect to all opponents, even if he has a noise up like scoring a last-minute winner at Arsenal in him: "This is part of football. It's good for football - that rivalry. I always try to respect the opponents. I don't show much of these kind of things but sometimes things happen, yeah."
Rodri had said to Viaplay of Scotland's win over Spain: “It’s the way they play. We have to respect that, for me it’s a bit rubbish because it is always wasting time. They provoke you and they always fall. For me, this is not football. For the speed of the sport, you have to move on but the referee has to take part of this. But he says nothing.
"It's frustrating because we want to win but it’s difficult, because you waste time and waste time. But it is what it is. They have their weapons and we need to use our weapons. We will know that for the next time. We always fight, but this is not about fighting, this is about falling four or five times on the floor. It depends on the referee.
“We need to always think about their physicality, but we have to use our weapons with the ball, to move it. Today we did many good things but at the end what is important is the goals and we didn’t score.”
