Pep Guardiola has coached a significant number of top players throughout his managerial career.
Having managed and won titles with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, the Spaniard has worked with some of the best players in European football over the past 15 years.
One of those players is Sergio Busquets, who played a vital role in Barcelona’s successes under Guardiola between 2008 and 2012.
Even after the 53-year-old left the Spanish club, Busquets carried on being a key figure for Barcelona until he left them last summer.
Now though, a pundit has highlighted one player currently in Guardiola’s squad at City as being as influential for his club and country as Busquets once was for Barcelona.
Darren Bent compares Rodri to Sergio Busquets
In a recent video shared on the talkSPORT YouTube channel, Darren Bent had this to say when asked which players have stood out to him the most throughout the group stage of Euro 2024.
He said: “My third one, right, I am going to go Rodri. I just think with Rodri in their team, if you take him out of the team, you notice it badly.
“When he is there, that calming influence is almost like he has taken over from Busquets. Busquets was really influential when he did it, now Rodri.”
Rodri is vital for City and Spain
Since joining City for £62m back in 2019, the midfielder has made 257 appearances for the club across all competitions, scoring 26 goals, delivering 30 assists and winning many trophies along the way.
Looking back over his previous Premier League campaign, the 28-year-old racked up more shot-creating actions (157), goal-creating actions (23), successful tackles (43) and recoveries (235) in the City squad.
In fact, the three league games that the Blues lost last season were the three games that Rodri, who Stefan Ortega described as being “world-class” back in April, missed through suspension.
In the Euros, despite only appearing in the first two of Spain’s three group matches, the City star has still managed to make more passes into the final third of the pitch (16) than any other Spanish player that has featured in the tournament.
Taking all of that into account, it shouldn’t surprise many City fans that Bent has highlighted how impressed he’s been with Rodri and likened him to Busquets in terms of how influential he is for club and country.