Sports
Rodri is a symptom of a sport at breaking point – and we’re all to blame
It had to be Rodri, didn’t it?
The man who, before this season, according to football data website Transfermarkt, had missed just five games through injury for Manchester City since joining the club in 2019, is out — and possibly for the rest of the season.
Why did it have to be Rodri who suffered a serious knee injury during the 2-2 draw against Arsenal on Sunday? Because football rarely fails to deliver cruel twists of irony and it was Rodri who, just last week, said players could be close to striking because they’re playing too much football.
Now, the man who never gets injured is badly injured, just weeks after being moderately injured (with a hamstring problem).
Has Rodri been felled twice in quick succession because he’s been overplayed in recent years, his body churned into mince by an unrelenting, never-ending football schedule that is full to bursting? Well, without access to Manchester City’s personalised load data and whether Rodri was already in the ‘red zone’ heading into the Arsenal game, it is impossible to be sure.
And, yes, players have always got injured and, yes, serious knee injuries aren’t always workload-related. Maybe it was just a case of bad luck, move on, nothing to see here.
What we do know, however, is that more football tends to lead to more injuries and a serious one to a player who many believe could win the Ballon d’Or next month will only amplify people’s concerns.
Within the sport, Rodri’s remarks had already garnered waves of support. “Rodri is right,” Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibault Courtois said in a conversation with Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos. “People say we earn a lot of money, that we can’t complain – and that’s true – but we have to find a balance because the best aren’t always going to be able to play.”
Thibaut Courtois backed Rodri’s calls for footballers to play less (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca agreed. “In terms of games, it’s too much,” he said before the weekend game at West Ham. “I don’t think we protect players. For me, it’s completely wrong the amount of games that we have.”
They were not alone. Aston Villa captain John McGinn expressed similar reservations, as did Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson, City manager Pep Guardiola, La Liga president Javier Tebas and Barcelona’s Jules Kounde.
But while coaches and players are largely of one accord, the schedulers beyond the domestic leagues, like FIFA and UEFA, appear to have far less appetite to cut down on matches.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin told Gazzetta dello Sport two years ago: “It’s easy to attack FIFA and UEFA, but the thing is simple. If you play less, you get less money. Who should complain are the factory workers who get €1,000 (£843; $1,110) per month.”
Meanwhile, FIFA claims on its website that: “Of primary importance in football’s present and future is the protection of player health and wellbeing.
“The suggestion for an overhaul of the calendar could include mandatory rest and preparation periods with fewer matches, fewer travels and less time away from clubs and families as a result.”
Yet it is FIFA’s expansion of the Club World Cup to 32 teams at the end of July in the U.S. that has poured fuel on the schedule fire, particularly if you’re of a Manchester City or Chelsea persuasion.
City, who play Watford in the Carabao Cup tonight, 49 hours after the Arsenal game finished, could play up to 75 games this season if they reach the final of every competition they’re playing in, while Chelsea could play 74.
Throw in 10 internationals scheduled during the season and someone like Rodri (if he wasn’t injured) or Bernardo Silva has up to 85 matches scheduled between early August and mid-July, which works out at one every four days.
It is undoubtedly too much. Rodri estimated last week that 40-50 matches per season would be ideal, but anything above that leads to an inevitable drop in performance levels due to fatigue.
Rodri is facing a prolonged spell out (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
The immediate counterargument for this subject is often centred on the fact players are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds per week, so they have no right to complain about how much they are flogged.
It’s kind of a moot point given we are the ones who suffer, not just the players, if Rodri, Kevin De Bruyne or [insert players from your favourite team here] are in the treatment room rather than on the pitch. And besides, does money really excuse riding roughshod over player welfare? Is it OK to flog a player earning £200,000 a week, but not one banking £100,000 a week? Where is the cut-off point?
And we’re all complicit, too, right? Clubs are happy to take the money offered to them for extra games in UEFA or FIFA competitions without putting up a protest as to the welfare of their players, or will organise energy-sapping two-week-long pre-season tours to the U.S. or the Far East, which are purely exercises in making money. Or they’ll do post-season tours to Australia after a gruelling season and before a summer of two big international tournaments, a la Newcastle and Tottenham Hotspur.
And we, the media, or fans, we’re all complicit in that we just keep gobbling all the football up in our metaphorical goal mouths. We pay Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Amazon, CBS and whoever else to watch the games, we incessantly scour social media for football content, or play fantasy football, or download club apps.
The whole thing is disgustingly gluttonous. Brian Clough’s famous quote on football being screened on television (“You don’t want roast beef and Yorkshire pudding every night and twice on a Sunday”) became absolute decades ago.
And it’s not going to get any smaller anytime soon. The Champions League has expanded to 36 teams, the Club World Cup is going to 32 teams, the World Cup is growing from 64 matches to 104, women’s football gets bigger every year, there are more than 1,000 EFL games on UK television this season, and there’s even a new competition for non-League and Premier League under-21 teams.
What makes it stop? Player strikes would get decision-makers sat around a table, but it is hard to see anything other than the calendar being condensed so that more sustained breaks can be taken, i.e. at the end of a season or for a bigger mid-season winter break. Competitions, aside from perhaps the domestic top flights, are not going to decrease in size when they are currently getting bigger.
GO DEEPER
After Rodri’s comments, should footballers go on strike over workload? – The Debate
Dwindling audiences are probably the only thing that can slow football down. There are signs that the younger generation are less interested in watching live football and more bothered about highlights, given dwindling attention spans and the prohibitive cost of attending live matches, but we are talking about the kind of drop-off that takes a long time to make a tangible difference to the revenues of TV companies.
A tipping point will be reached at some point. It may take a deluge of injuries, or early retirements, or a drop in the standard of football owing to fatigue. Until then, money trumps everything else — we all feed the football money machine.
We’re all to blame.
(Top photo: Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
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Croatia thought their FIFA World Cup hopes were still alive when they scored the game-tying goal just before the end of stoppage time in the second half.
But a VAR review said Mario Pasalic was offside, and it was Portugal moving on instead.
Gonçalo Ramos’ goal just minutes earlier — a beautiful header into the back of the net in the 94th minute — was the decider in this 2-1 victory for Portugal. And it was only the second time in Portuguese World Cup history the nation needed to come from behind to win, underscoring its resilience on the sport’s biggest stage.
Luka Modric of Croatia and teammates react after the 1-2 loss during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match between Portugal and Croatia at Toronto Stadium on July 2, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario. (Patrick Smith – FIFA)
It was a controversial ending, though, and one where Croatia tried to argue the ball never hit the head of Igor Matanovic, which made Pasalic offside during VAR review.
It’s also worth noting that a new chip within the ball shows when it is touched, giving more concrete evidence to the referee’s final decision in such a crucial time of the match. This was the 10th goal overruled by VAR thus far in the World Cup.
GABRIEL MARTINELLI’S 96TH-MINUTE GOAL RESCUES BRAZIL FROM JAPAN UPSET IN WORLD CUP ROUND OF 32
So, with the goal annulled, Croatia’s time at the tournament has ended. As a result, Croatian legend Luka Modrić is finishing his fifth World Cup, which will likely be the 40-year-old midfielder’s final one.
But another older legend on the pitch will move on, as Cristiano Ronaldo made some World Cup history during this match.
When No. 7 stepped foot on the pitch and the ball was kicked, he became the oldest player to participate in a knockout stage match at the World Cup at 41 years and 147 days old. He also became the oldest player to score in a knockout stage match when he saw a penalty situation while Portugal was down 1-0 in the match.
Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal celebrates after scoring his team’s first goal during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match between Portugal and Croatia at Toronto Stadium on July 2, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario. (Patrick Smith – FIFA)
Ivan Perisic got the first goal of this game and put Portugal’s back against the wall. But after a foul was committed inside Croatia’s box in the 67th minute, it was time for Ronaldo to get his first career knockout goal, and he didn’t disappoint.
Ronaldo was ecstatic, sprinting toward the corner flag and performing his signature “SIU!” celebration, which the crowd bellowed with the score at 1-1. Ronaldo had also seemed to get that first knockout goal just minutes earlier but he was called offside.
Modrić and Ronaldo, two former teammates on Real Madrid, also made history together, as they were the first two players 40 years or older to play in the same match together.
Luka Modric of Croatia congratulates Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal after the 2-1 win during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match between Portugal and Croatia at Toronto Stadium on July 2, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario. (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
It was also an emotional moment after the match, as Ronaldo wore the jersey of late Portugal teammate Diogo Jota, who died in a car accident a year ago. A team photo was taken on the pitch, with Ronaldo holding up Jota’s jersey alongside his squad.
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Now that the job is done in the Round of 32 for Portugal, they face a big challenge against a key rival in the Round of 16.
Spain, who dominated Austria with a 3-0 finish earlier on Thursday, awaits Portugal at Dallas Stadium on July 6 at 3 p.m. ET.
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Roki Sasaki’s abysmal appearance faded away in the Dodgers’ 12-7 win over the San Diego Padres on Thursday night, but only after the National League West leaders rose from a catatonic first inning.
The Dodgers roared back from a 6-0 deficit as Andy Pages skirted a tying double down the left-field line, and Mookie Betts and Max Muncy each drove in runs to give them the lead for good in a four-run fourth inning. All of which sent the sold-out Dodger Stadium crowd into jubilant celebrations, some jumping, others breaking out World Cup chants.
“Thankfully, it played out the way I didn’t expect,” manager Dave Roberts said of the team’s ability to turn the game around, “or the way it started.”
By the time the game ended, Sasaki’s three-inning start seemed like a murky nightmare the Dodgers awoke from in a sweat. Except the Dodgers weren’t dreaming, and the team hadn’t done much to assuage the concerns with Sasaki.
The problem with Sasaki isn’t his stuff. On his best nights, when the velocity and command combine, Sasaki blows past batters with a triple-digit fastball and cutting off-speed pitches. The problem has been how to tick the radar without making the strike zone look like a Jackson Pollock painting — and recently, it has.
Sasaki’s June swoon, impervious to the calendar change, continued into Thursday’s series opener against the Padres, in which the right-hander gave up three home runs among seven hits before Roberts called it quits going into the fourth inning.
“They were on everything,” Roberts said. “You could see it.”
One possible concern? Tipping pitches. While Roberts and catcher Dalton Rushing said the team would need to do more research into Sasaki’s start, both left the door open to this answer.
“That would be a big explanation as to how they felt like they were on every pitch,” Rushing said.
As San Diego chugged through its lineup, Sasaki struggled to keep up. With his first pitch, he gave up a double to Fernando Tatis Jr., who scored on Manny Machado’s home run that left center fielder Pages staring at the ball’s path as it plopped down on the other side of the blue outfield fence.
The inning was only a preview of the Padres’ power. Each of the nine San Diego batters got his chance against Sasaki in the second, and the team quickly dug the Dodgers into a six-run hole. He surrendered two home runs in the second inning. Jackson Merrill blasted a ball to left-center field leading off, and, two outs later, Jake Cronenworth drove in two runs with a shot to right-center.
Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo that he needed to work on his command, but he felt like his fastball was good.
Roki Sasaki has his head down after giving up a solo homer to Jackson Merrill in the second inning.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“I don’t think my stuff was bad today,” Sasaki said. “Overall, it wasn’t great but a lot of things evolved.”
Part of Sasaki’s issue lies with his approach. Roberts said he wants the second-year pitcher to be aggressive, to play the cat-and-mouse game required to beat batters in the box. But when given the opportunity, Sasaki has shrunken in recent outings, struggling with his command and his ability to pitch deep into games.
“We had a great May, so let’s just get back to competing and making pitches,” Roberts said.
When reliever Will Klein walked out to the mound in the fourth to the aggressive, rambunctious clamor of the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” and collected two scoreless, one-hit innings, the relief was immediate: The Dodgers took the lead.
The lineup already was revving, as Rushing homered in the second inning while Sasaki was still in the game, and both Kyle Tucker and Muncy drove in runs off starter Randy Vasquez in the third, cutting the deficit to two. The Dodgers broke through against the Padres’ bullpen to score six runs in the fourth and fifth innings.
“The bullpen was fantastic tonight, and then the offense came up big,” Roberts said.
A late catch by Pages helped close out the game after he gloved a ball despite ramming into the padding of the center field wall. A combined effort by Paul Gervase and Tanner Scott shut down San Diego’s ninth-inning momentum after it pushed across a run.
“Turned back around, was able to find the ball and make a really good catch right there,” Tucker said of Pages. “That was a huge out.”
The Dodgers (57-31) beat their division rivals for the fifth time in seven games to open a 13-game lead over both San Diego and Arizona. The Padres, meanwhile, have lost six straight and given up 66 runs over the last six days, the most in such a span in franchise history.
But San Diego’s flaws don’t negate the Dodgers’ as they burned through six relievers in their win. So, while the Dodgers crawled out of the hole with a season-high 17 hits, the steep cost heightens the pressure on the rest of the rotation the rest of the series.
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In previous years, the Round of 16 was the first knockout stage match, but with an expanded field of 48 teams— it is now the second.
Let’s check out the odds at FanDuel Sportsbook as of July 2 for which countries are favored to make the Round of 16 and emerge from it.
This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.
To Reach Round of 16
Argentina: -2000 (bet $10 to win $10.50 total)
Colombia: -550 (bet $10 to win $11.82 total)
Portugal: -340 (bet $10 to win $12.94 total)
Switzerland: -235 (bet $10 to win $14.26 total)
Egypt: -148 (bet $10 to win $16.76 total)
Australia: +122 (bet $10 to win $22.20 total)
Algeria: +186 (bet $10 to win $28.60 total)
Croatia: +260 (bet $10 to win $36 total)
Ghana: +380 (bet $10 to win $48 total)
Cape Verde: +1160 (bet $10 to win $126 total)
Now let’s check out the odds at FanDuel Sportsbook as of July 2 for the matchups already in place.
SATURDAY, JULY 4
Canada vs. Morocco
To Advance: MAR -300, CAN +225
Moneyline: MAR -130, Draw +240, CAN +420
Paraguay vs. France
To Advance: FRA -1800, PRY +1140
Moneyline: FRA -600, Draw +600, PRY +1800
SUNDAY, JULY 5
Brazil vs. Norway
To Advance: BRA -245, NOR +196
Moneyline: BRA -120, Draw +260, NOR +340
Mexico vs. England
To Advance: ENG -134, MEX +110
Moneyline: ENG +145, Draw +210, MEX +200
MONDAY, JULY 6
USA vs. Belgium
To Advance: USA -110, BEL -110
Moneyline: USA +165, Draw +230, BEL +170
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