 One player that everyone seems to be talking about at the moment, Don, is Pedri, and Chevy himself said there is no bigger prospect in football now than Pedri. At one point, Pedri was one of the most exciting talents in the world, but instead of savoring his abilities, his coaches abused them. This is the story of the season that got more and more dangerous with every coming match and nearly ruined Pedri's career forever. Coming off their first trophy-less season in 12 years, Barcelona were desperate to rise back to the heights of seasons prior. Club hallmarks Luis Suarez and Ivan Rakitich got the boot after years of honorable service to the Catalan club. And with only a week to go before the season began, Kike Setian was dismissed, and club legend Ronald Komen, the enterprising center back of Creus Barcelona, was given the reins of this hodgepodge of random talent and told to do something with very little. In that mess of a squad stood $240 million worth of a dynamic duo of Coutinho and Griezmann, but hidden underneath all of those incredibly inflated price tags stood a skinny 17-year-old who's signing flew under the radar of most, yet one day would become the most highly touted and overused player in the entire world. Initially coming for only 5 million euros in July of 2020, there weren't a ton of expectations around his name. A few smart outlets recognized his potential and noted that he had starting first team potential, eventually, but few over the summer expected what would come that season. After only a very short time at Barcelona, he immensely impressed the training staff with his skills, and that knack for immediate impact was something Pedri had carried with him for much of his young career. Unlike a lot of players, Pedri does not have a long history in high-level academy teams, only joining Las Palmas' academy in 2018. While there, after only just one year, he was thrust into the first team in 2019-2020, where he would place second division football at just 16 years old, playing against grown professionals in a total of 37 matches for Las Palmas, as well as seven more matches on top of those in the Spanish youth team system. When a young player makes that much of an impact in the world of football, it doesn't go unnoticed, and he soon earned his move to FC Barcelona the summer after that season. But little did this young man from the Canary Islands know that this year he would play in the third-most games of any top-flight footballer for at least the past two decades. Because just as Pedri had it with Las Palmas' academy, he improved himself immediately, and he made himself invaluable to Ronald Kuhman. They must have noticed his slick turns in training, as well as the tribal trait titular to the success of any midfielder in Barcelona's squad, La Pausa. La Pausa is something that all of the highest level midfielders in Barcelona history have held very closely to their hearts. It was an art of midfield maestros like Chavi, David Silva, and especially Busquets, to take their time and be patient and fake out defenders before moving on and making a very progressive move. That, in essence, was La Pausa, and Pedri immediately showed that he had it. It made Pedri seem years wiser and decades more competent on the ball than anyone else on the pitch. Kules would put that little man up against anyone. But despite the potential repercussions, that's exactly what Kuhman did. At the time, with a confusingly choreographed mess of players that he called a squad, Kuhman did not have a lot of players to rely upon. So he needed to lean on somebody, and that happens to be Pedri. Despite having a messy and a decent, but aging Busquets in the squad, and the rest of that mess of a backline were just not up to par. So the coaching staff latched themselves onto any minuscule glimpse of Barcelona football that they could. In the first half of the season, Pedri appeared in every single one of Barcelona's matches, with the exception of one match against Ferran Cevaros. However, even though that is an insane amount of matches to play for a 17-year-old in top-flight football, he only played the full 90 in two matches that season. It wasn't a drastically terrible year, though they did finish second in the group due to a head-to-head matchup with Juventus, something that they would come to rue later in that year. Despite all the matches Pedri played in the beginning part of that season, January 2021 is where this longest season ever for a teenager, and perhaps the most detrimental for any player of all time, really began to take shape. By the time the January transfer window closed, Barcelona had said goodbye to Carlos Alenya and Rafinha, two players that would perfectly fit to take the load off of Pedri, and whether they were good enough to do that or not, they could have saved Pedri a few minutes on the pitch. Coutinho was there as well, but considering his injury record and his lack of form, Koumin had really no one to look to, except for Pedri. Ricky Pucci was also there, but he just was not impactful enough and had too many flaws in his game. Even though the fanfare around his name was similar to the level of Pedri's, so the young 17-year-old was thrown into the deep end whenever Barcelona began to struggle, and struggle they would. From January to the end of March, Pedri played a significant amount more minutes than he had the years prior. And after only going the full 90 once in the first half of the season, he went the full 93 times in January alone. However, little did we know that that incredible load for a young player would just be the start of it all. Also only 1% of you are subscribed, so please consider subscribing and clicking the bell so you don't miss my next video. This was his first chance to be called up to the World Cup qualifying squad for Spain, and so of course Pedri's going to be excited for it. Pedri played in all three of their matches in March, tallying 185 minutes and providing one assist. And though on paper, that seemed like a somewhat normal incorporation into a national team side, considering Pedri's age and Spain's incredible depth of talent in the midfield, you can already see glimpses of what was to come from Spain's footballing federation in the coming months. After the international break came Barcelona's round of 16 match, and since they placed second behind Juve in their group, they were paired up against one of the strongest sides in Europe at the time, Paris Saint-Germain. But surprisingly, Barcelona's young maestro still shine despite Barcelona's less than stellar results. Once a player who had his minutes carefully managed by Koumin, Pedri was now thrust into as much football as possible. And so, the kid played as many minutes as they could squeeze out of his heart, and for the most part, he thrived. Pundit's lauded his potential, all of his miracle moves, but in reality, what the pundits and announcers say doesn't really matter. The team's results do, and Barcelona's results were as disappointing as they could have possibly gotten. They dropped both matches to Real Madrid that year, lost the Supercopa in extra time to Athletic Club, and slowly dropped enough points to let Athletico Madrid slide to the top of La Liga. Pedri played in 30 matches for Barcelona after January 1st, 2021, picking up five assists and scoring two goals in a struggling side over just five months. However, to his detriment, his performances would not go unnoticed by Spain. You would think that at 18 years old, any player or person for that matter in the world would be thrilled to star for their national team in the Euros. And honestly, Pedri probably was, but in retrospect, he shouldn't have been. In the Euros, Spain had a decent tournament, making it to the semis where they would go out to Italy on pens. However, Pedri played every single minute of the tournament with the exception of a single minute in their win against Switzerland on pens in the quarter-finals. So it's safe to say Pedri was probably pretty tired. He had played in 42 matches in just seven months. However, this would not be the end. It would only get worse. After just four days of rest after Spain were knocked out of the Euros on June 6th, Pedri was sent on his way to Spain's Olympic camp in Tokyo, and of course, Spain made a run all the way to the finals of that competition. And as you could have guessed it, Pedri played in every single one of those matches. Sadly, they would lose 2-1 to Brazil in extra time in the finals. A year full of expectations turned to a year of a wonderful player being abused by two desperate footballing groups. But all of that abuse would soon rear its ugly head. Because after being dismissed from the Olympic team on August 7th, he had about a week of rest before rejoining Barcelona in training camp for the following season. And two weeks into that season, he would suffer a hamstring injury that would see him miss 39 matches in the 21-22 season. Most of the issues experienced by Pedri since then have been directly related to the abuse that he experienced under the reigns of FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team at that time. Since you enjoyed this video, slide on over to this video, which is all about how Fermin Lopez finally broke the curse of La Masia. It's very interesting and I definitely recommend it. But thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.