“I have shown my best version”
The situation
Rodrygo is immersed in his third preseason with Real Madrid , since he landed in the white team in 2019. He arrived at the age of 18, with a backpack full of illusion and the expectation that marked the 45 million euros that Santos entered for his signing. Now, at 21, he is part of the future backbone of the club. For something he has been shielded by Madrid with a renewal until 2027 and a termination clause of 1,000 million euros. His past season started hesitantly, but he ended up as a hero with his goals against Sevilla, Chelsea and, above all, the double against City in the Champions League semi-finals. In an interview granted to Real Madrid TV. “I am very happy for last season, mainly for the ending. I’ve been very good, I’ve played a lot of games, I’ve scored goals and handed out assists. I have shown my best version of football and I hope to do the same throughout this season”, points out sincere and hopeful. He knows that it will be an important campaign where he must follow the path that his friend Vinicius already traveled in 2021-22, that of changing the promise label for reality. He was key for Ancelotti (he played 49 games, scoring 9 goals and dishing out 10 assists) and this year he will be even more so. For this he is preparing, like his colleagues, since he returned from his vacation on July 11. “They are the most important training sessions because we do the work that we cannot do during the season. Then there are many games and we don’t have much time to train. That’s why we have to train hard these days, to be good and endure the whole season,” he said.
“Very hard days”
Putting yourself under the orders of Antonio Pintus in a preseason is not a trivial task. The Italian ‘sergeant’ is squeezing the players before the tough season ahead, with up to six titles at stake. Hence the high demand from minute one, as Rodrygo explains: “ It’s been nine very hard days. We are working hard, the truth is that we are very good. We are improving every day, physically we are getting better and mentally too , which is the most important thing. We are going to continue like this, we are having a very good preseason”. This Tuesday the 19th the team flies to Los Angeles at 3:00 p.m. for the American tour, where they will play the first of three friendlies in Yankee territory against Barça on Sunday. Before, the last training session in Valdebebas at 10 in the morning. The Brazilian international does not want to leave anything to chance and therefore does extra work during the year with Marcel Duarte . His daily routine beyond the tasks with his personal trainer since he was 13 years old? “Eat after training and get some sleep. Then we recover a bit with the physios and then we train again.At night try to sleep early because the next day you have to train again. It’s what I do and I think that almost all of us do the same, ”he acknowledges on the club’s official channel. Rodrygo knows what keys to press to continue growing.