Rodri Criticizes Refereeing of Yamal in Spain's Semi-Final Victory
Rodri left the semi-final tunnel with a place in the final secured and a clear message burning in his mind. The scoreboard said Spain had won. The stats said Lamine Yamal had drawn just one foul. Rodri did not buy it for a second.
He insisted the numbers told only a fraction of the story.
“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 still raw. He spoke of “10 or 15 fouls” on Yamal that went unpunished, of repeated tackles where “the kid goes to the ground” and nothing follows. In his eyes, the pattern is obvious: if referees let it go, defenders will just keep chopping away.
“The permissiveness has been quite blatant today,” he added, a line that cut straight to the heart of his anger.
The official record paints a very different picture. Match data credits Yamal with drawing only one foul all night. Just one. It came in the 22nd minute, when the teenager tumbled in the box and the referee pointed to the spot. Mikel Oyarzabal buried the penalty to open the scoring.
That decision, the only one that went Yamal’s way on paper, sparked fury on the opposite bench. France head coach Didier Deschamps raged at the award, openly questioning referee Barton’s standard. One flashpoint, two furious camps, and a semi-final that left neither side happy with the whistle.
Amid the noise, Rodri kept circling back to the same point: protection. Not for himself, but for the 19-year-old winger who has become central to Spain’s entire blueprint.
Yamal, who had celebrated his birthday just a day before the semi-final, delivered the kind of performance that rarely shows up neatly in a statistics column. Spain used him not just as a creator, but as a defensive weapon, a key part of the plan to smother Kylian Mbappé and blunt France’s attack at source. His goal tally at the tournament stands at one, yet inside the dressing room nobody is counting.
They are watching the running. The pressing. The discipline without the ball.
Speaking to TVE, Rodri could not hide his admiration. “Lamine Yamal played a fantastic game, especially off the ball he was sensational and helped us a lot,” he said. No caveats, no gentle praise for a youngster. Just a senior leader recognising a teammate who already plays with the composure of a veteran.
Spain now move from a stormy semi-final into a final that Rodri describes as the summit of his career. The opponent – Argentina or England – hardly matters to him in one sense. The stakes do.
“Very happy, very proud, especially of my team, of my country, of what this represents for us,” he said, allowing himself a brief smile before his thoughts turned to recovery and what comes next. “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 is clear. Spain will embrace the occasion. They will lean on Yamal again. And Rodri expects the referee, this time, to keep up with them.
