Rodri complained about the level of officiating and in particular the failure to protect Lamine Yamal after Spain’s World Cup semi-final win over France.
Spain booked their place in Sunday’s World Cup final with an impressive 2-0 win over tournament favourites France in Dallas.
Most pundits tipped 2018 winners and 2022 runners-up France to advance to the final as Didier Deschamps’ side have been the standout team at the World Cup.
Spain, in contrast, have been relatively pedestrian at times during the World Cup but should not have been underestimated as the reigning European champions.
Exclusive analysis of England v Norway
Make sense of the drama with Metro’s free daily newsletter. Sign up now.
Yamal won Spain a penalty midway through the first half after being hacked down by Lucas Digna and striker Mikel Oyarzabal made no mistake from the spot.
France rarely threatened to equalise and Spain put the first World Cup semi-final to bed with Pedro Porro scored his side’s second with half an hour remaining.
Manchester City midfielder Rodri said he was ‘very proud’ of Spain’s ‘impressive’ performance but made a point of criticising the refereeing during the match.
The standard of officiating has been regularly criticised during the World Cup and Rodri felt referee Iván Barton and his team failed to protect 19-year-old superstar Yamal.
‘I’m very proud of my team and what it represents for us,’ Rodri said. ‘Now it’s time to rest because we probably have the most important match of our lives on Sunday.
‘Nullifying the opponent was part of what we wanted to achieve and then to take the game to our style of play. It was impressive.
‘We all needed each other. I had a lot of help in the midfield to control such a physical and aggressive team on second balls – I would say it was a very complete match.’
Turning his attention to the refereeing of the World Cup semi-final, Rodri added: ‘It’s obvious.
‘We’ve been dealing with this situation for three games now, there have been too many fouls.
‘We’re talking about 10 or 15 fouls where the kid [Lamine Yamal] goes to the ground. If the referees do not call them, then the defence will keep doing the same thing.
‘The permissiveness is clear and was especially obvious today. But he still played a great match.’
France World Cup winner Patrick Vieira expected his countryman to reach yet another final but admitted the better side on the night progressed.
‘It was a big expectation of France to win the World Cup,’ he said on ITV.
‘We are all really disappointed by the result but mostly by the performance because we needed our top players to perform today and they didn’t do it.
‘It wasn’t one or two that were missing, all of them were missing. Collectively we were really bad.
‘Spain dominated the game in every single aspect of it. Spain were the better team. I don’t think France turned up at all.
‘I said Spain had to be at their best to beat this France team and I think they were above that.
‘Collectively it was a fantastic game from them. It was a well prepared game because tactically they were all over the French team.’
Luis de la Fuente’s Spain will face defending champions Argentina or England in the World Cup final in New York on Sunday night.
For more stories like this, check our sport page.
Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.