Rodrigo’s perma-grin is reminding us what fun looks like - The Square Ball 24/8/22

KEEP SMILING

Written by: David Guile

When your football club smashes its transfer record to bring in a shiny new asset, a trace of anxiety creeps in amid the excitement. This is because you expect, fairly or not, that the new arrival is going to want special treatment. They’re now the most expensive player in your club’s history, after all. That’s enough to swell anyone’s ego.

They might be moody and aloof, resistant to your training methods. Ask them to play anything other than their preferred position and they’ll look at you like you’ve just asked to practise your favourite bits of the Kama Sutra with their wife. Think Tomas Brolin, denied his three morning doughnuts by George Graham’s authoritarianism, forced to labour on the left wing for a club he considered beneath his talents. ‘You can’t make me play there. Do you know who I am?’

You certainly don’t expect them to behave the way Rodrigo is currently behaving. I don’t know what’s got into him this season. He’s swanning around with a permanent maniacal grin, exuding the energy of a kids TV presenter on ecstasy, greeting every camera with a wide-eyed, open-mouthed thumbs-up. I’ve never seen a footballer so happy. It’s like he’s channelling the spirit of Dave Benson Phillips.

I don’t mind admitting I was worried when we signed Rodrigo. The greatest strength of the Leeds squad that won the Championship at a canter was its cohesion: every player was fully invested in the project and willing to sweat blood in order to get us to the Premier League. Parachuting in a £27m striker of uncertain temperament with Champions League and international experience risked upsetting the balance of a squad whose strength lay in its unity. Bielsa was famously intolerant of talented individuals expecting special treatment, as illustrated by Juan Roman Riquelme’s exile from his Argentina squad. Rodrigo had already proven himself capable at Champions League level, and was now joining a club expected by many to be in the thick of a relegation battle; indeed, one Spanish pundit compared the move to Harry Kane signing for Spanish minnows Elche. How could Leeds, having spent so long away from the Premier League, expect to keep him happy?

Slotting Spain’s number 9 into the squad proved problematic, although not for the expected reasons. Afflicted by injury and illness, Rodrigo found Patrick Bamford to be an immovable object at the spearhead of the attack. So he was shoehorned into an unfamiliar midfield role, with lukewarm results, and lost his place in the Spain squad. We braced ourselves for the temper tantrum that would surely follow, but it never came. Rodrigo just got on with it, muddling through some games but doing his level best to contribute in a role that was never going to suit him. It’s hard to imagine, say, Cristiano Ronaldo doing similar.

Since then Rodrigo hasn’t had too many reasons to be cheerful. He remains absent from the international scene and his club form has been fitful at best — until now. Suddenly the goals have begun to flow: four in three Premier League games following a pre-season hat-trick against a hapless Cagliari side. Whisper it quietly, but it looks as though the most expensive piece in Jesse Marsch’s puzzle might have finally, belatedly, clicked into place.

It’s hard not to feel that there might be a connection between the perma-grin Rodrigo’s been sporting since the start of pre-season and his vastly improved goal return. Much has been written, positive or otherwise, about Marsch’s style of man-management, but integrating Rodrigo into his leadership group is beginning to look like one of his smarter moves. Right now, Rodrigo is exuding positivity and confidence, and no longer looks like an expensive, mismatched part in a machine that never suited his strengths. He looks ready to lead, and possibly even to make inroads into the £27m price tag weighing him down for the last two years.

I’ve had some sympathy for Rodrigo, who didn’t ask to be lumbered with a club record fee and has laboured under the expectations that accompany it. When you’re the most expensive of the 800-odd players who have represented this club, it’s only natural that you will be judged to a higher standard. Simply getting your head down and working hard isn’t enough on its own; you need to be seen excelling, and doing things your teammates cannot. A seven out of ten performance isn’t enough when a right-back signed for a mere £200,000 is consistently putting in eights week after week. It leads to questions, and speculation about whether the money was wisely spent.

Rodrigo’s age means we’re unlikely to recoup the money we paid for him, so we need to see results now. It’s fortunate, therefore, that he finally appears to have found his mojo. A happy Rodrigo, it seems, is a prolific Rodrigo. A happy Rodrigo doesn’t just bring goals, it brings wide-eyed, wide-mouthed celebration, chest-beating and corner flags snapped clean in half. It brings back an element that was crucially and painfully absent last year: fun. Because fun is what it’s all about, isn’t it? You pay your hard earned money and sit down in your seat in the hope that you’ll leave Elland Road a little (or a lot) happier than you entered it, and the early evidence suggests that a happier Rodrigo equals a happier Leeds United.

As we leave behind the era of Bielsa, Phillips and Raphinha and enter a phase of transition, Rodrigo will never have a better opportunity to establish himself as a protagonist in our story, particularly in light of Patrick Bamford’s continuing injury problems. It’s up to him to take this opportunity with both hands. His future, and that of Jesse Marsch, may depend on it. Let’s hope he stays cheerful.