Rodri Criticizes Referee's Permissiveness in Yamal's Defense
Rodri walked off the pitch elated, but far from satisfied. Spain were through to the final. The midfielder, though, had a very different battle on his mind.
He went straight for the officiating.
For the third game running, he argued, Lamine Yamal had been kicked from pillar to post with barely a whistle in sight.
“What is clear is that we have been dealing with this situation of the number of fouls for three games now,” Rodri said after the match, his frustration obvious. “I understand that some might not be fouls, but we're talking about 10 or 15 fouls where the kid goes to the ground, gets tackled, and they have to call it, because otherwise the defenders are going to keep doing the same thing. The permissiveness has been quite blatant today.”
The numbers told a very different story. Official data credited Yamal with drawing just one foul all night.
That single infringement changed the game. In the 22nd minute, the referee pointed to the spot, and Mikel Oyarzabal calmly converted to break the deadlock. One whistle, one penalty, one goal.
Even that decision split the stadium. France head coach Didier Deschamps made his displeasure clear, questioning referee Barton’s handling of the contest from the opposite technical area. Both camps, both captains of their respective projects, leaving with their own grievances about the same performance in the middle.
Amid the noise, Rodri kept circling back to Yamal.
Spain’s plan had been clear: use the teenager’s intelligence and work rate to help cage Kylian Mbappé and blunt France’s threat in transition. It was not a night built for highlight reels or showreel dribbles, but for discipline, shape, and sacrifice.
Yamal, who had turned 19 just the day before the semi-final, embraced that role. One goal in the tournament so far hardly tells his story, and inside the Spain camp they know it.
Speaking to TVE, Rodri underlined exactly that.
“Lamine Yamal played a fantastic game, especially off the ball he was sensational and helped us a lot,” he said, a senior leader publicly backing the youngest face in the dressing room.
The praise was deliberate. So was the warning.
With Spain now locked into the showpiece final, Rodri is already bracing for what he calls the pinnacle of his career. Argentina or England await, two sides brimming with forwards who, like Yamal, invite contact and provoke decisions.
In matches of that magnitude, every whistle – and every silence – carries weight.
“Very happy, very proud, especially of my team, of my country, of what this represents for us,” Rodri said. “We have to rest and recover well because we surely have the most important match of our lives ahead of us. Rest and a huge match.”
Spain will spend the coming days recovering, analysing, preparing. Rodri will do the same, all while hoping that when the final comes, the world’s biggest game is decided by the players’ feet, not by the referee’s tolerance for the next tackle on Lamine Yamal.
