rooting a SamsungA72 running Android11

I successfully got my Samsung A72 rooted (Android 11) a month ago, with everything working (took a day off and spent 10+ hours trial and error and read almost anything i could find online, as well as watched tonnes of youtube videos). Since majority of the instructions are pretty oudated, i thought i should document what i have done and share my experience, hoping that it will help those of you keen to go down the same path.

Useful links:
- a very rough instruction, that actually contain the correct high level steps what you need to do, to root a Samsung A72 - https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/galaxy-a72-root-with-magisk-sm-a725f-ds.4273419/ (note: not very detail instructions, had to do lots of reading and testing to work out what he meant)
- https://samfw.com/firmware/SM-A725F which contain the firmware that's free and fast to download (instead of mega or other sites, that rate limit your download speed, trying to get you to pay to get all the files you need)
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JBcgbnEfawxSCGxlDF_Lf3cPcXmz4uq7cGVmEQqMB8A/edit which i think is shared on another android pogo spoofing subreddit. The Smali patch part of the instruction and gps joystick is detail and useful.
Steps i took:

1. Unlock bootloader
2. Download firmware from samfw (or other sites). Once you have extracted the firmware, you should have 4 files that you will need for quite a number of the steps. Those 4 files typically has the following prefixes as part of their names: AP_????, BL_????, CP_?????, CSC_????. The 5th file that come with the firmware HOME_CSC_???? isn't typically needed for any of the steps
3. Get Odin, and Samsung driver etc downloaded and working on a windows machines
4. Connect Samsung A72 to the windows pc (using USB cable), copy the AP_???? file from your window pc to your Samsung phone (from windows, you should be able to see the phone appear as a drive/folder, and be able to copy files back and forth to or from your phone).
5. Download and install Magisk manager on your phone.
6. In your Magisk Manager app, click install on MAgisk, click "select and patch a file", and select the AP_??? file you copied from windows machine, and proceed to get the file patched (once it's patched, a new file will appear in the same folder - if i remember correctly, it was called magisk_????)
7. Copy that new file from your Samsung phone back to your windows machine (note: this new file is what you will use within Odin, under the AP part of the selection. The AP_???? part of the original firmware is now patched and grant you root access.
8. download disable VBMeta from https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/recovery-12-official-twrp-3-6-for-galaxy-a52-4g-and-a72-4g.4405751/. You need this to get Samsung to disable VBMeta check (or else your phone will be stuck with vbmeta error state and you need to flast your phone with stock firmware to get it back)
9. Power off phone. Connect phone to PC with USB cable. When phone is powered off, press and hold down Volume Up + volume Down + power buttons all together to put your phone into download mode.
10. Use Odin and flash phone with just VBMeta (put the file under "AP"). This should take no time. Once complete, Press volume down + power on phone to reboot.
11. Once phone is back online, repeat process above and Use Odin and flast your phone with 4 files selected. For AP, you use the newly patched file patched by magisk, that you just copied over from phone to PC. For the BL, CSC and CP files, just point them to the exact same file extracted from firmware downloaded online.
12. Your phone should be fully rooted after this step. Go to google play store and download safetynet test as well as root checker app as a way to test if your phone is rooted properly, and whether you have done enough to pass google safetynet test.
13. From what i have read, all modern phones (since Andoird ver 9?) come with more stringent safetynet checks. This is what i ended up having to do, to pass the safetynet test: a) Change magisk app to different name using native magisk app function. b) enable Systemless hosts option within magisks. c) enable Zygisk (beta) option within magisks d) download and install the Universal SafetyNet Fix module using magisk. After all above, reboot phone, and phone passed "safetynet test" :)
14. For the Root Checker Basic app, if you enable the app within magisk under superuser, your app should return and confirm that root access is working.
15. All you have to do, is follow the rest of the instruction in link above, download smali on windows machine, connect to phone, let smali does it's job as per instructions. Everything still works even for Android 11. once you follow the remaining instructions and install gps joystick, you should have a phone that's fully working and can be used to spoof etc.
    I have 20+ years working experience in IT, and it still took me close to 10 hours of trial and error (i semi-bricked the phone multiple times, and had to do more reading to work out how to get myself out of it. Once i realize that i can get my phone back by just flashing it with stock firmware, all worries go away).
    Majority of instructions online are vague, only cover part of what i need to do, and doesn't cover evreything you need to do end to end, to allow you to be able to spoof on an android, and hence i am putting this together, hoping that it will help some of you wanting to go through and root your phone.
    Happy catching and spoofing everyone.