One year with Pedri

Friday marks the anniversary of Pedri’s official presentation as an FC Barcelona player on 20 August 2020.

At the time, the then 17-year-old said that "I am looking forward to developing my game with the best players in the world.” Twelve months on, and it’s safe to say that he has achieved just that.

Young gun

Who would have imagined that he would play 53 games for the team in 2020/21, more than any other member of the star-studded squad. He became the second youngest Barça player to reach half a century of appearances, only Bojan Krkic did it at a younger age, and his goal against Betis made him the fourth youngest goalscorer in club history (behind Ansu Fati, Bojan Krkic and Leo Messi).

74 games

In an extraordinarily busy year, the Canary Islander also became the youngest ever player for Spain at the European Championship, where he was named Best Young Player and was included in the Team of the Tournament for being one of the primary reasons for his country’s match into the semi-finals of the competition.

As if that wasn’t enough, he also represented Spain at the Tokyo Olympics, going all the way to the final before missing out on gold to Brazil. In total, that was 74 competitive games last season.

Now back at Barça, the Camp Nou faithful dedicated a tribute to him on occasion of the Real Sociedad match last Sunday. Nobody can deny that it wasn’t thoroughly deserved.