Rodri believes Manchester City were the 'only team' in their Champions League quarter-final second leg with Real Madrid, as he criticised the Spanish side's tactics at the Etihad.
After an enthralling 3-3 draw at the Bernabeu last week, Real changed tactics from preying on the transitions to deploying a low block that frustrated City for 120 minutes - especially when Rodrygo fired them ahead early on. Kevin De Bruyne's deserved equaliser forced extra-time, but City couldn't make their dominance count and ended up losing on penalties to crash out of the Champions League.
City's 33 shots was the most in a Champions League knockout game on record, and they had twice as much possession as Real, leading Rodri to slam the visitors' tactics after the cruel exit. "To be honest, I've only seen one team today,' he told BBC Sport.
"They defend and know how to suffer. We know how tough beating Madrid is, but in my opinion we should have gone through."
Speaking to Spanish broadcaster Movistar, Rodri admitted that City were surprised at how deep Real sat their defence, set up to limit City's creativity - a tactic that ultimately paid off after extra time.
"In the end this is football," he conceded. "We know what we do and we know that this competition does not understand merits, it understands who puts the ball in the back of the net.
"Their only shot on target they had went in, and we were trailing for most of the game. We have had chances and if we had been more clinical, we would have won the game. Real Madrid won the tie, but in my opinion we deserved to go through.
"We knew the game was going to be long for them, but we didn't expect that they were going to be so, so far deep. It is difficult to analyse. [...] We had the feeling that penalties were more convenient for them. It was their turn [to progress] again.
"In the end this is football. When you have given everything you have no regrets. Now it's time to lift the boys up and congratulate Real Madrid."
Teammate Ruben Dias also opened up on the frustration in the dressing room after such dominant performance, telling TNT Sports: "I don't know what to say. Frustrating. We dominated the whole game. You go to penalties. The effort was there. We had chances. It's a difficult one to take.
"You always end up doing everything to try to avoid penalties. That's what they wanted. The team was there. We fought, we had our chances but it wasn't our day.
"We had the chances. Sometimes the ball goes in, sometimes it doesn't. Now we have to look forward at what's to come in the season."
