Rodri Critiques Referee's Leniency as Spain Prepares for Final

Rodri walked off the pitch with a place in the final secured, but his mind was still on the whistle. Or, in his view, the lack of it.

The Spain midfielder was convinced the numbers did not tell the story. Officially, Lamine Yamal had drawn just one foul all night. On the pitch, Rodri felt he had watched his teenage teammate chopped down time and again.

“What is clear is that we have been dealing with this situation of the number of fouls for three games now,” he said afterwards, frustration barely disguised. He spoke of “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 data paints a starkly different picture: one foul won, one whistle, one penalty. It came in the 22nd minute, when Yamal’s movement in the box finally forced a decision from referee Barton. Mikel Oyarzabal buried the spot-kick to open the scoring, a cool finish that should have settled Spanish nerves.

Instead, that moment lit the touchpaper on the touchline. France head coach Didier Deschamps, far from grateful for the referee’s intervention, also took aim at Barton’s performance. Both camps, for different reasons, walked away unconvinced by the officiating on a night that should have belonged solely to the football.

Through the noise, Yamal kept running.

The winger had turned 19 only the day before the semi-final, yet Spain built a key part of their tactical plan around him. His job was not just to dazzle on the ball, but to help pin back Kylian Mbappé’s flank and disrupt France’s transitions. One goal all tournament hardly tells the story; his work without the ball has become a quiet pillar of this Spain side.

Rodri, speaking to TVE, made sure that side of the performance did not go unnoticed. “Lamine Yamal played a fantastic game, especially off the ball he was sensational and helped us a lot,” he said, elevating the teenager’s graft as much as his talent.

That blend of youthful energy and seasoned authority has carried Spain to the brink of something special. The final now looms, with Argentina or England waiting as the last obstacle. The stakes, as Rodri sees them, could not be higher.

“Very happy, very proud, especially of my team, of my country, of what this represents for us,” he said, the adrenaline giving way to a more reflective tone. “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.”

The message was clear. Spain will embrace the occasion. Rodri just wants the whistle to keep up.