Pedri has returned to the starting box. The Canary Islands footballer once again suffered a muscle injury and will have to watch for more than … a month how his teammates play the chestnuts in the League, Cup and Champions League. That is the worst torture for a player who has already amply demonstrated his credentials, who is fundamental in Hansi Flick’s team and who is also on the verge of a World Cup that comes at one of the best moments of his career.
And the image of the Canarian, in pain on the pitch, is one of the ones that hurt the most, pardon the redundancy, for Barcelona fans. The Canarian has fallen into dry dock up to 14 times since he arrived at the Barça team in 2021. Eleven of them have been due to muscle problems, a circumstance that Pedri has treated and has improved over the years thanks to the physical trainers that Barcelona has and also thanks to Flick, who pointed out this improvement as one of the key points for his career at Barcelona.
That is why the injury especially hurts the Canarian player. Pedri believed he had found the formula to reduce these injuries after a season, Flick’s first, in which he played 59 games in all competitions and which had ended his reputation as a crystal player. This year, however, it has already suffered three setbacks. This time it was a muscle injury in the biceps femoris of his right leg, while in October it was a tear and in December discomfort in the calves. Between the three injuries, he will have already missed, when he returns, two and a half months of competition, a loss for him and for a Barcelona lame without one of its best players.
A headache
No injury comes at a good time, but this is a very delicate one for Barcelona. The culés face a tremendously loaded calendar. They arrived in Prague after five games in 15 days and from now on they will have to face five in the next 16. It is a difficult mountain to climb for the culés, more because of the volume of games than because of the rivals, a priori affordable, which can become steeper without the player who sets the tempo of the games.
Pedri is not injured as much as before, but each of his physical problems is a greater damage for Barcelona. It is because his figure has been growing season after season, exhibition after exhibition and it has been making it more difficult to have a guarantee relief for the canary. It is not surprising, therefore, that his loss causes a hole for Flick, who will have to be inventive and readjust pieces.
And Barcelona does not have a substitute to cover Pedri’s place, but it does have several players who can vary their position to accompany Frenkie de Jong in the engine room. The most obvious is Eric García, the guy for everything. He has played several games this year in that area alongside Pedri and has shown that he can perform and be a great complement to an organizer of the game, as De Jong will have to be next month. The other ways are to place Dani Olmo there and have him assume Pedri’s role in creating the game or give the alternative to Marc Bernal, who has been seen in better physical condition in recent games.
