 It's come to the point where a lot of Barcelona fans are saying that this kid is cursed, and a lot of them are saying that Barcelona should sell him now to escape the saga. So is there a future for Pedri at Barcelona, or even a future in professional football for him at all? Well, let's take a look at how we got here first. 17-year-old Pedri finally makes his move to FC Barcelona where he would play first-tier football for the first time after appearing in almost every match the season before for second-tier side Las Palmas. And let's just say it didn't take very long for Pedri's potential to be recognized and abused by every single one of his coaches. Last season, Pedri would go on a play in every league match for Barcelona, but two, while being selected for every single match possible for the Spanish national team, eventually playing the most matches 73 of any player in top-flight football in at least 20 years. The kid was absolutely incredible. He rightly earned himself a starting spot in that Barcelona midfield and the Copa Trophy while he was at it. He slid into the midfield with Frankie De Jong and Sergio Busquets about as well as any player possibly could have. However, all of this game time took a toll on him, a toll that he is still suffering from today. But other young towns have played a lot of football before, too. So why did Pedri suffer so much? Most of the young players that are able to avoid significant injuries at young ages are more muscular than Pedri was. Though I'm not a doctor, I know from my own history of rehabbing my ACL surgery that increasing muscle mass can change the way your ligaments and muscles are stressed during exercise. This is probably why Pedri was so susceptible to injuries immediately and why the likes of Rooney and Messi weren't really as susceptible that early. They had a little bit more muscle mass to them. There was a little bit more around their legs to protect them. But it's not just that this kid had a big injury one year that took him out for most of the season. It was the fact that a lot of the injuries that have occurred for Pedri have happened to more or less the exact same spot on his leg. The first injury he suffered was right at the beginning of the 21-22 season to his right hamstring. Physical therapy, rest, and icing the area generally takes care of that pretty well. But Pedri would end up re-injuring that same area later that season seeing him miss a total of 41 matches that year. And in the following season Pedri would re-injure the same hamstring injury against Manchester United in the Europa League and he would miss 15 matches for the club. Again, I'm not a doctor, but I do know that when you injure a certain area on your body you begin to compensate for that injury by using muscles walking or operating in a slightly different fashion that puts less stress on the injured area but then in turn puts more stress on other areas that are not normally used to having that stress on them. Coming into this season I think all of this strain on new muscles caused Pedri to injure his quad in training earlier this year. He missed 2 and a half months at the beginning of this season because he strained his quad while taking long shots in practice. Clearly that wouldn't have happened if he had a stronger hamstring. Clearly the kid's right leg is a liability because that's pretty much where every significant injury has occurred. But does that mean he's a lost cause? Again, I would love to make a comparison with another player that has gone through something similar and turned it around but it's hard to find. However, there is another player in fact in the Barcelona squad right now that plays the same position and went through something very similar to Pedri, albeit at a slightly older age than him, Gundawan. According to transfer marks throughout Gundawan's career he has been injured at least 24 times. More importantly though is the fact that these injuries have been very significant. At 23 years old he had a severe spinal surgery which saw him miss over 400 days of football. Some of the doctors even told him that he could never play football again. We know that's not true but then 3 years later he tore his ACL and missed nearly the entire 16-17 season with Manchester City. The reason I want to focus on this is the fact that every time Gundawan came back from one of these injuries he came back better. But why was he able to do that? Ilkay Gundawan is a clean and tidy midfielder and he always has been, similar to Pedri. They make smart, sometimes quick moves with the ball that fools defenders and opens up spaces for them. That allows for them to make both smooth passes and create chances for teammates and sometimes even themselves. Injuries to midfielders like Gundawan and Pedri affects them significantly differently than do the same injuries to players that rely much more on their physicality like their agility and their speed. Say we have two players, one Pedri and one Mbappe. Both of them are great players in their own right but they are both great at very different things. Mbappe is fast and has a rocket of a right foot. Pedri is agile but great because of his footballing brain and his incredible touch on the ball. Now imagine they both strained their quadriceps, the same thing that just happened to Pedri. For Mbappe this means that even when he does come back fully healed maybe he's going to be a little bit more cautious than normal when taking shots and maybe he's just going to be a bit slower off the line. Those small alterations can completely change Mbappe's effectiveness but Pedri is a much different story. See with this quad injury coming up again Pedri will likely have to change the way he plays a little bit until he has completely and utterly healed from this injury. When Pedri hurt his quad the first time he was trying to shoot from distance on his right foot. When he injured his quad the second time he was trying to play a long ball again with his right foot. This means that they were probably exerting a little too much pressure on his right leg meaning that he probably can't shoot much with his right leg from distance and play too many long balls anymore for the foreseeable future. Whenever he does come back Pedri is probably going to have to make that concession in the way he plays so as to not injure himself again. That will absolutely hurt his effectiveness and overall threat as a player but he can still be incredibly valuable. We just need other players that have proven to be good at those long balls mostly just Gundawan and Kubarsi to take over the reins of doing it for the side. However, no matter what Pedri chooses to leave out of his game we know that Pedri has to come back as strong if not stronger at the few things that don't necessarily hurt his leg. His tight ball control as well as his quick passes and his footballing intelligence. Like the way Gundawan was able to come back at Dortmund after his spinal surgery as well as after his ACL surgery at Man City and be better or if not just as good as a player as he was before the injuries. I get it there is still a lot of risk in it and if you want an example well just look at Anzu Fati. Anzu experienced a tremendous disaster with his knee that really took a toll on him. But when he was finally healthy from it finally able to come back during the 22-23 season he looked to be a significantly worse player because he was unable to adapt to the fact that he had not only lost some of his agility part of what made him so good at taking players on but also he lost his confidence he wasn't able to adapt quickly he just wasn't the Anzu Fati that everyone remembered he wasn't able to do that adaptation however Pedri's adaptation should be a lot easier and not only does he have Gundawan who is experienced with injuries that could have crippled his career but Pedri is also a very similar profile with high football intelligence and high technical ability things that don't necessarily need to go away when you're injured in the way that losing agility makes sense to lose if Kules and FC Barcelona are talking about selling Pedri they should really be focusing on one primary question can he adapt to play in a way that lessens his risk of injury without significantly hurting what he offers on the pitch I believe his game can still be elite without long balls or several long distant shots because realistically he doesn't do that a ton anyway I think Barcelona should keep Pedri however if they do they really need to consider having a strong backup option that is exactly where my boy Fermin Lopez can come in now I know this season he has been very unimpressive I hyped him up a ton and so far we haven't really seen much from him I think that's because he really isn't getting a fair chance Chavi is not playing him much and when he does come in he's getting these garbage minutes where the team is desperate and so there's a lot of pressure on his head and he continuously makes the wrong decision so this is the time for Fermin Lopez to not only prove himself but help support Pedri in his recovery and his healing and bringing him back to a fantastic player a player that isn't so injury prone I think it's possible for Pedri to come back from that the squad just needs to be in a healthier position to rotate him a bit more and the guy needs to have a better idea of his way of playing that won't risk the health of his right leg like shooting from long distance and playing long balls now we just talked a lot about Pedri's future but go click here to learn a lot more about that year that basically poisoned Pedri he played 73 matches was absolutely incredible and was overused to hell and that's where we are today but thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one peace