Real Madrid had spent the whole summer being asked about Rodri, and the whole summer saying nothing much at all. It took a goalkeeper standing in a mixed zone at midnight in Cornellà to finally put the club’s dressing room on the record. Thibaut Courtois was asked about the midfielder who chose Barcelona over the Bernabéu, and he did not reach for a grievance.
The answer came moments after Madrid’s 2-1 win at Espanyol, and it mattered because it is the first time anyone inside the squad has addressed the signing Los Blancos wanted most and did not get.
What Thibaut Courtois said about Rodri
Courtois was asked specifically about Rodri, and about the two of them having shared a hotel on international duty. His reply, as carried by Bernabéu Digital, was three short sentences: “Every player chooses where he wants to be. He’s a great player. He has chosen.”
There is no bitterness in that, and no pretence either. Madrid Universal’s write-up of the same exchange reads it as a shrug with an edge — that if Rodri did not want to be at Real Madrid, the loss is his. Either way, the substance is identical: the squad is not going to spend the season litigating a transfer that did not happen.
It is worth remembering how close this got. Rodri was in advanced conversation with Real Madrid earlier in the window before negotiations stalled, and Barcelona moved in. For a player who was already an awkward figure at the Bernabéu after the 2024 Ballon d’Or, the destination turned an ordinary miss into a Clásico-sized one. Madridistas read the whole saga through his decision to snub Real Madrid for Barcelona.
The midfield window Real Madrid still have not solved
The reason Courtois was asked at all is that the hole is still there. Real Madrid signed six players this summer — three of them defenders — and not one holding midfielder. With roughly a week of the window left, the shortlist has thinned rather than grown.
Martin Zubimendi has been the obvious name, and it has been shot down: journalist José Miguel Villarroya, reported by Defensa Central, says the club deny he is a genuine target in the closing weeks, with Arsenal’s valuation around €100m and no appetite at Madrid to go there. The same report denies that José Mourinho has been personally pushing the deal.
Adam Wharton looks equally unavailable. Crystal Palace manager Pierre Sage was asked whether the England midfielder could move to a bigger club and answered, per SPORT, that “I don’t think now is the time to do that” — not a guarantee, but not the language of a club bracing for a sale.
That leaves Kees Smit, the Dutch midfielder Villarroya values at €40-45m, as the one name still described as realistic. We covered why Smit has become the fallback option when the Zubimendi links were knocked down. He is affordable and highly rated. He is also nobody’s idea of a like-for-like replacement for a Ballon d’Or winner.
Why the shrug might be the right response
Courtois’s other remarks that night were about standards rather than signings. “The discipline of the team on the pitch,” he said when asked what had changed. “Everyone is rowing in the same direction with clear ideas. We have to improve on what Mourinho asks. Little by little it will get better.” He added that the demands never move: “When Real Madrid play, every year the maximum is demanded, and especially after not winning anything in a year and a half.”
That is the actual answer to Rodri. Madrid opened the season with a functioning back line, three summer signings in the XI and a winner from a debutant, and they did it without the midfielder they chased. The window may still shut with the pivot unresolved. Judging by their goalkeeper, nobody in the dressing room intends to treat that as an excuse.
