Pedri: A record-breaking debutant
Pedri’s arrival at Barça has shaken up the midfield. The Canarian footballer, on holiday since before the Eibar match, has completed his first record-breaking season, and it's one that will long be remembered. Furthermore, the midfielder has been included in the Spain squad for the upcoming Euro 2020 tournament postponed from last summer.
He played a total of 52 official matches, which was the most in the entire first-team squad and ahead of Frenkie de Jong (51), Antoine Griezmann (51), Sergio Busquets (50), Jordi Alba (49), Clément Lenglet (48) and Leo Messi (47).
Of the other teams in La Liga, only Antonio Puertas (Granada, 53), Manu Trigueros (Villarreal, 53), Youssef En-Nesyri (Sevilla, 52) and Daniel Parejo (Villarreal, 52) beat or equaled Pedri's record.
A few weeks ago, Pedri also became the second youngest footballer to reach 50 official matches at Barça, behind Bojan Krkic.
Since the 2013/14 season only two other footballers have played a minimum of 50 games in their first year as Catalans: Arturo Vidal and Ivan Rakitic.
Close to playing every league game
If he had not rested on the last day, Pedri would have taken part in all 38 league games. In the whole of the 21st century, that's only occurred on three occasions for Barça: Víctor Valdés played all the league matches in the 2006/07 and 2009/10 seasons and Leo Messi (the only outfielder to do so) didn't miss a single one either in 2014/15. Pedri, then, was on the verge of matching a very difficult record to achieve.
In the Spanish League, only four players have participated in all the matches during the 2020/21 campaign: Iñaki Williams (Athletic Club), Àngel Correa (Atlético Madrid), Rafa Mir (Huesca) and Youssef En-Nesyri (Sevilla) .
