Pedri - Barca's young torchbearer is burning intensely to the very end!

Pedri has become an indispensable figure for Barcelona, but his excessive playing time has noticeably worn down his stamina, directly impacting results in both the Champions League and LaLiga.

Since the start of the 2025-2026 season, Hansi Flick has rotated 23 players, yet only one has started in all 9 official matches—2 in the Champions League and 7 in La Liga—that player is Pedri. The Spanish midfielder has become Flick’s untouchable choice, even though the coach admits: "They have played too many minutes; the key is to maintain freshness. In the second half, you can see some players are fatigued." Indeed, in the loss against PSG, the decline in fitness of Pedri and De Jong was the main reason Barca fell behind.

Statistics reveal that Pedri is being overworked. He has played 776 out of a possible 810 minutes, equivalent to 95%, including 169 out of 180 minutes in the Champions League and 607 out of 630 minutes in La Liga. He has completed 90 minutes in 4 matches, only resting briefly during stoppage time. More broadly, Pedri has appeared in 79 of the last 80 matches for Barca and the national team, missing just one due to food poisoning last season.

The major issue is that Barca must maximize Pedri’s involvement because he remains too vital. The comparative numbers speak volumes: including many matches from last season until now, after 39 games, Pedri has made 76 key passes creating chances and generated 15 clear goal-scoring opportunities. Meanwhile, the 2025 Ballon d’Or top 3 nominee Vitinha from PSG, after 31 games, has created only 29 chances with 4 high-probability scoring chances. This highlights Pedri’s exceptional creativity in Barca’s playstyle, even though Vitinha also plays a crucial role in PSG’s possession-based philosophy.

In reality, since last season Flick has tried to manage Pedri’s playing time to protect him, sometimes substituting him in the second half to avoid overload. But currently, such measures are nearly impossible. Last season, Pedri played 59 out of 60 matches for Barca, missing only one La Liga game. He participated in the Champions League, Copa del Rey, and Super Cup, as well as 10 matches with the Spanish national team. These numbers make Pedri irreplaceable despite the risk of recurring muscle injuries that plagued him in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.

His consistent performance has placed Pedri among the top 11 Ballon d’Or nominees this year, further confirming the exceptional status of the 22-year-old midfielder. The remaining question is how Barca will balance protecting their key midfielder’s health while maintaining their ambitions in La Liga and the Champions League?