2023-11-04 08:37:29
Pedri returns. He’s been gone so long that we’ve lost track of him. The memory of his figure on the grass fades, shaken by that plague of muscle injuries that has made his legs explode. And, above all, his mind, no matter how much he, careful and humble, avoids any public confession of pain. Of physical pain and, especially, of that emotional pain that has invaded you. And today, with the medical discharge, he will already be in San Sebastián to face Real Sociedad (9:00 p.m.)
Only Pedri knows how much Pedri has suffered, who appeared in the elite with a heavenly season (2020-21), transformed into the perfect partner of Messi, whom he convinced with his game not to leave. Chosen the best young man in Europe in Luis Enrique’s refreshing Spain that fell in the semifinals of the European Championship during the pandemic, Olympic silver in Luis de la Fuente’s Spain, erected as the pillar of the renewal that Barça needed.
Everyone squeezed Pedri in that enormous first year without looking further. They all turn out, therefore, to be complicit in what happened later when he lived longer in the infirmary than in the countryside.
Pedri is back has become, much to his regret, a more common phrase than ‘Play Pedri’ in recent years. Hurt because his legs could not withstand the tremendous wear and tear accumulated from Barça, the Euro Cup and the Olympic Games, the young Canarian has been looking for all possible shortcuts to be who he was.
A different boy, with a singular creativity that projected such light that when he is not on the grass, Barça remains in the dark, no matter how much La Masia produces dynamic, different and aggressive interiors like Gavi and Fermín that support the tactical framework in their absence. by Xavi. With them, however, it is not enough. But without Gavi and Fermín, the team would be even worse, although the nostalgia for a Barça without Pedri continues to increase.
“His return has not been delayed, he is already prepared. I see it one hundred percent”
Barça coach
“His return has not been delayed, he is already prepared. I see it one hundred percent,” exclaimed a smiling Xavi upon verifying that Pedri will get on the plane to San Sebastián today after being injured for more than two months. In reality, it has taken too long because since that summer of 2021 nothing has been the same. Xavi misses him more than anyone. Pedri’s loss has been joined by the absence of Frenkie de Jong, an explosive cocktail for a team that has disoriented the team, devoid of his headlights.
Sixth muscle injury
The canary, meanwhile, is fighting with himself after all the specific work carried out last summer, still taking all the details of his preparation to the maximum. Pampering his body with delicacy and precision, with nutrition that is increasingly tailored to his body. But this one, capricious as he is, resists and one day in late August, during a routine training session, he once again sent him a message of enmity. It was Thursday, August 24.
“Injury to the rectus femoris of the right thigh,” Barça briefly reported. It was the same one he had suffered last season. The club did not give any deadline for his return. It was thought that he would be away from the field for a month, although, in the end, it was 71 days.
It was also Pedri’s sixth muscle injury in the last two years. In September 2021, after playing against Bayern at the Camp Nou (0-3), he entered the infirmary, nothing has been the same again. It was thought that he would make it to Saturday’s classic against Madrid in Montjuïc. But no, he wasn’t there. In the final half hour, and coinciding with the white resurgence through Bellingham’s forcefulness, Lewandowski and Raphinha reappeared. Pedri, on the other hand, does not.
very careful
This clean week of matches has been wonderful for the Canary Islander to adjust, as Xavi always says, his “feelings” are the right ones. He really needed to feel good, scaring away any fear, whether physical – he has practically missed this start of the season – or emotional. Because since that Thursday in August when he tore the muscle in his right leg in an absolutely unexpected way, dismantling all the silent work done for months, he wants to go carefully.
“For me, Pedri is a fundamental footballer, I hope he can have continuity to show that he is worth a lot”
Barça coach
Not only does his body ask for it – the same injury and two relapses in the last eight months advised him to do so – but, above all, his mind. At 20 years old, he has gone through all the stages from that dazzling emergence into the elite, to consolidating himself with an indisputable authority and hierarchy, transformed into a pillar of Barça, no matter who his coach is. If Koeman at the beginning or Xavi later.
“For me, he is a fundamental footballer, I hope he can have continuity to show that he is worth a lot,” argued the current Barça coach, crossing his fingers that the muscles have been rebuilt effectively.
Only two in the infirmary
It is now up to Xavi to manage the midfielder’s reintegration into the group, measuring the workload in agreement with the doctors. And the minutes he can be on the field. “We work a lot on injury prevention. Don’t pull your weight,” the coach told a journalist.
Frenkie de Jong still has “pain”, so his reappearance is delayed
“Everything is fine with the injuries, don’t worry. There are 30% questions about the injured,” he added, aware that in the classic he recovered Koundé (he did not play a minute), Lewandowskí (played 29 minutes) and Raphinha (13 ). Now Pedri returns, who does not need to feel the pressure of being the piece that gives the team imagination after the defeat in the classic.
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Sergi Roberto and Frenkie de Jong are still in the infirmary of the sports city. But, little by little, Xavi is rebuilding the skeleton of his squad because he had up to eight casualties. “Frenkie is still in pain, he has bad feelings,” the coach also confessed to justify that the Dutch midfielder is not traveling to San Sebastián because he is not yet fully recovered.
But today Xavi has, at least, Pedri, who finally abandons the gloom of the infirmary and leaves behind the melancholic loneliness of the injured person to feel, once again, a footballer.
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