Rodrygo spent the summer joking about the rumors linking him to a new club every week, insisting that he is happy to still be at Real Madrid.
Talk of interest in the Brazil international was rife throughout the off-season. After falling out of Madrid’s starting XI over the final weeks of the 2024–25 campaign, rampant speculation linked Rodrygo with a glut of Premier League clubs.
Arsenal and Liverpool were both floated, while Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur emerged as serious contenders. Xabi Alonso’s reluctance to deploy Rodrygo throughout the Club World Cup only heightened the transfer intrigue but the 24-year-old insists that he never put much stock in the conjecture.
“I’m used to it; every year they say I’m leaving,” he shrugged to TNT Sports following Tuesday’s Champions League opener against Marseille. “During the transfer window, every week I was on a different team.
“I even joked with my parents and friends, ‘Look, today I’m on this one, tomorrow I’m on that one.’ Every week I was on a different team, but, as I said, I was very calm mentally and it didn’t affect me at all.
“I continued enjoying my vacation, training because I knew this was where I would continue. Well, in the end, I’m still at home, in the place I always dreamed of being. I’ll continue giving my all every day I wear this shirt.”
Rodrygo’s insistence on staying put appears to have paid off. During Carlo Ancelotti’s reign, the versatile forward was routinely shunted out to the right wing while Vinícius Júnior roamed free on his favored left flank. Madrid’s new boss has taken the bold step of dropping Viní Jr. for Rodrygo on multiple occasions already this term—including their first Champions League home game this week.
“I train and dedicate myself every day, waiting for opportunities,” Rodrygo dutifully reported after winning a penalty for Kylian Mbappé’s first goal of a 2–1 win. “He’s [Alonso] been changing a lot, he’s been playing differently in every game. He started the season by putting me more on the left, but everyone knows I can play inside and on the right, as I always have.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘Every Week’—Rodrygo Reveals Honest Reaction to Real Madrid Transfer Speculation.
