Barcelona steal Rodri away from Real Madrid and plan to make him new Busquets

Spain’s World Cup-winning captain has completed his move to Camp Nou where he is a natural successor to club legend By the time Flight PTN27B started its descent into El Prat a bit before 8pm on Monday evening, a small crowd had gathered by the terminal doors, waiting for it to land.

A few people stood and watched the sky, cameras out to capture its arrival.

A lot more watched on their phones.

In the two hours it had taken to get there from Manchester, taking off at 5.11pm, 101 minutes behind schedule, the Pilatus PC-24 had become the most tracked plane on the planet.

Everyone knew that Rodrigo Hernández was on board.

Unless, of course, he had been sneaked away in a catering cart.

Five days earlier, Rodri had been seen, and recorded, at Barajas airport waiting to get on a flight back to Manchester from Madrid.

He wheeled a small RFEF (Spanish football federation) case with his name on, stood alone in the queue, the World Cup winning-captain just a bloke in shorts and T-shirt, and his stay in the UK was supposed to be brief, just long enough to say goodbye.

The plane he was boarding was a Ryanair one: that was the detail everyone homed in on, something extraordinary in the ordinariness.

This time, though, he came on a private jet, one way.

His family travelled with him.

He came to sign for FC Barcelona.

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