Jude Bellingham is one game from the Ballon d’Or – but Rodri will deserve Golden Ball if Spain beat England in Euro 2024 final

Rodri says that when he was a kid he was more interested in understanding football than enjoying it. He was obsessed with figuring out “how it worked”.

“I watched a lot of games – my family was sick of it – and I could judge if a player was thinking,” he once told El Pais. “I tried to add that to my game, because I could see that if I understood the game I would have an advantage, especially at a young age when few players have that conceptual understanding.”

His studies served him well. This is a footballer with a level of intelligence matched only by his influence over the game. He controls play, and to such an extent that sometimes he can stop it. Indeed, we often laud those special talents capable of controlling matches for ‘putting their foot on the ball’ – and Rodri did exactly that in Spain’s Euro 2024 win over Georgia.

‘Little bit mad’

With La Roja trailing and looking flustered for the first time in the tournament, the midfielder simply paused in possession for a couple of seconds. The game wasn’t going according to plan, so Rodri effectively hit the reset button.

“At that moment I thought that was what I had to do,” he said. “It was a little bit mad; 10 minutes where we lost control.” Thanks to Rodri, they regained it.

First, he drew Spain level with a crucially-timed equaliser just before the break. He then ran the show in the second half as Luis de la Fuente’s side claimed an ultimately facile 4-1 win.

It was a game that rather summed up the new, improved and ever-evolving Rodri. An already elite defensive midfielder has added goals to his game over the past two years, meaning there is arguably no more complete player in the game today.

For that reason alone, he deserves the Ballon d’Or. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to get it.

First among mortals

Rodri understands how football works off the field, as well as on it. Remember, he scored the winning goal in the 2023 Champions League final before being named Player of the Tournament after Spain’s triumphant Nations League campaign – and only managed to finish fifth in the Ballon d’Or vote, behind Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe and Kevin De Bruyne.

He humbly took consolation in ranking “first on the list of mortals” and hailed Messi as a “deserved” winner because of the Argentine’s heroics at the previous year’s World Cup. It was still staggering, though, that Manchester City’s best player during their treble triumph placed behind two of his team-mates.

Rodri knew why, though.

‘Marketing, money and advertising’

The Ballon d’Or is nearly always won by goal-scorers. No defender has lifted the trophy since Fabio Cannavaro in 2006, while Lev Yashin is the only goalkeeper to ever take top spot – and that was all the way back in 1963. So, Rodri really wasn’t surprised by his failure to even make the podium last year.

“This is normal,” he pointed out last year. “I understand very well how things work in these individual awards. They are based on marketing, money and advertising. There have been midfielders before who were also Spanish who did not get what they deserved.”

It’s a fair point. Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets are rightly regarded as three of the finest midfielders of all time. They won everything there was to win for era-defining Barcelona and Spain sides, and effectively changed the game.

Not one of them, though, ever landed the Ballon d’Or, while Busquets, the player with whom Rodri is so often compared, never even got close.

‘Perez orchestrates the campaigns well’

Obviously, in a weird way, Barca’s magnificent midfield trio were a tad unfortunate in that they had Messi for a team-mate. He and Cristiano Ronaldo effectively turned the Ballon d’Or award into a duopoly for a decade. They achieved a level of sustained excellence arguably never seen before, but there’s no denying that worthy recipients were overlooked during the Messi-Ronaldo era (Wesley Sneijder and Franck Ribery immediately spring to mind), leading to allegations that the vote effectively became a popularity contest, one easily manipulated by parties with a vested interest in the outcome.

Pascal Ferre, the director of France Football, even admitted to EFE in October 2022 that “there are machines like Real Madrid that are very strong. Their intelligence is that they support a single player. “For years it was Cristiano Ronaldo, then Karim Benzema. That prevents the votes from being dispersed.

“So, they know how this works. It’s no coincidence if it’s the club that has won it the most times. (Madrid president) Florentino Perez orchestrates the campaigns well.”

Bellingham for the Ballon d’Or?

He’s likely to land another winner for his club in October, with Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Jr widely regarded as the two leading contenders to win this year’s Ballon d’Or. The former was integral to Madrid’s Liga triumph, while the latter proved decisive during the tail end of their Champions League success.

However, with Vinicius’ Brazil having suffered an embarrassingly early exit from the Copa America, the common consensus is that Bellingham is now one game away from the Ballon d’Or. He may have gone missing for Madrid during the tail end of the club season, while he’s actually performed poorly aside from scoring a couple of crucial goals in Germany, but just being part of an England win over Spain on Sunday should seal the deal for the 21-year-old.

Victory cannot be taken for granted, though.

‘Love for a defensive midfielder to win it’

Spain have been the best team at the Euros by some distance – and Rodri has been one of the main reasons why. While Bellingham has been toiling against weak opposition, Rodri has been shining against world-class rivals. Such quality and consistency really should be rewarded.

Of course, Rodri being Rodri, he insists that he is not too interested in individual accolades. It’s all about winning team trophies in his eyes. But it’s worth noting that he has admitted that he would savour belated Ballon d’Or recognition.

“I know legendary midfielders have never achieved it, but I would love for a defensive midfielder like myself to win it,” he told France Football. “That would mean a lot, both for the recipient and for young players who want to play in that position, so they know they have the right to be recognised, even if they don’t score goals or aren’t particularly flashy in their game.”

As Rodri well knows, it doesn’t usually work like that. The Ballon d’Or nearly always goes to the goal-scorers. But he’s also well aware that another midfield masterclass could change the entire media narrative.

Fans may be fickle, but so too are voters. Bellingham probably is just one game away from the Ballon d’Or, but if Rodri runs that one game, too, the ultimate individual award could – and indeed should – end up in the hands of the consummate team player.