If anyone enters Transfermarkt, perhaps the sports consultation page most used by regulars and journalists, they can find that hard data that aspires to “kill” the story, the memory – personal and collective – and the promise of a promising future or a fateful destiny, but what would we be without those stories? What would Pedro González López be?Pedri” but only a date of birth, a height, a place of origin, a goal assist statistic or an exit clause?
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Pedri, simply, how they knew him in his native Tegueste, Tenerife, where he went from his grandmother’s scolding for playing in the living room, to the confiscation of the ball by the police after using a square next to the town church as football field, today he is of age. He’s a man, but he could be a big boy who He grew up to wear that mythical ‘8’ that Xavi Hernández, his former coach, turned into a legendary shirt, at FC Barcelona. In addition, of course, he stands, with black hair and the dribbling of an experienced footballer, in one of the pillars of the midfield of Spain, which will try to raise its fourth Euro Cup in Germany 2024.
A few months before turning seventeen, when several are thinking about passing the courses to finish school undefeated, the prodigy – who has suffered complex injuries in the last season and a half – signed his first professional contract with Unión Deportiva Las Palmas, where “no one has dazzled more in the Second Division in recent times”, according to a publication by La Vanguardia. On August 18, 2019, with the number 28 on his back, he suited up for the first time after having signed – with his parents involved, due to his minority – with the club that gave him the opportunity. And although the team from the Canary Islands lost 1-0 against Huesca, the boy began to overcome that condition of someone who has no responsibility to now be the one who has the obligation to become a man with a ball between his feet.
Barcelona’s Spanish midfielder Pedri (R) celebrates with Barcelona’s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi after their team’s second goal during the Spanish League football match between Barcelona and Getafe at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on April 22, 2021. (Photo by LLUIS GENE / AFP)
/ LLUIS GENE
If there is something that always appears in all the stories of young wonders, small local phenomena that then shine like a comet in front of the eyes of the world, it is myth and crossed stories. The legend of Pedri is still not well defined, because still at 21 years old, he has not won everything important to have books and songs made for him. But there are always origin stories. At least one. His is that of the little boy who was left aside for not being that physical marvel of twenty-first century football. Sesé Rivero, head of the Tenerife quarry, ruled him out for that same reason: weakness. Physics, of course, since he had plenty of talent. However, the Las Palmas Training and Recruitment Department rescued him from “indecision” and lack of will, for which the Tenerife club regrets it to this day. Among these myths is also that of Real Madrid, in which he was not left after not performing well in a test in the cadet division “due to a heavy snowfall that spoiled the field and did not let him play his game.” according to Mundo Deportivo.
His arrival at Barza is far from epic and closer to bureaucratic. A bureaucracy sprinkled with small doses of luck, but not a misunderstanding that places you where you don’t deserve to be, but rather one that finds you in the right place or in the eyes of whoever decides.
It was thus that Rocco Mayorino, sports director of Las Palmas, He called Catalonia to “offer” to the wheel. In fact, he contacted the technical secretary, Ramón Planes, to alert him to the quality of the young man. At the same time, the Canarian coach at the time, Toni Otero, telephoned José Mari Bakero, director of youth football at the Blaugrana club, to insist on the same issue. Pedri was on everyone’s lips, in a figurative way but with a high level of hoarding. However, and after Barcelona ended up buying him for five million euros in 2019 (the player would not arrive until the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic), it was coach Ronad Koeman who decided to take him to the preseason.
Although in Las Palmas he scored only four goals and with Barcelona he has not had more than twenty, Pedri became a reference for youth which has always boasted of producing the Catalan team, and of its great contribution to the national teams of different categories.
From there, all the records of precocity that one can imagine, such as becoming the youngest player to play in a Euro Cup final phase with the Spanish National Team. His great performance in Barcelona earned him the Golden Boy and Kopa Trophy awards.from the magazines Tuttosport and France Football, respectively.
The BBC has put Spain as the fourth candidate to win the Euro Cup, behind France, England and Germany, and has placed Pedri as one of the most important players on the team led by Luis de la Fuente. Despite recent criticism of the commitment of a young man who was once a promise and is now a reality (although he must confirm it in this quote), such as that made by the X @Barcelonismos account, in which they questioned his nocturnal habits, Pedri continues to maintain that spirit typical of his age and of a player who has not yet forgotten the part of the game that brings any child closer to kicking a ball: “You do what comes to mind at any given moment, you don’t even think about it.” head, you do the first thing you think of, that’s my football, my way of playing is having fun, leaving aside what’s in front of you, doing your best and, above all, enjoying, being natural and, whatever has to come out, Well, it’s going to come out,” says Pedri after being asked how he plans to face what is coming to him, a personal revenge and an opportunity to confirm that he is worthy of continuing the legacy of those who succeeded him.
