Flick will be without Pedri for the upcoming matches
The Canary Islander, who has started in every match, is suffering from a hamstring injury.
BarcelonaPedri González López has suffered an injury. The Canary Islands midfielder, a key player in Hansi Flick's Barcelona system, has a tear in the distal biceps femoris muscle of his left leg, which will keep him out of action for the next few weeks. This Wednesday he did specific work in the gym to begin his recovery from this physical problem. of Sunday's classic at the Bernabéu, in which he ended up exhausted and sent off for two yellow cards. He will miss Elche's visit to Montjuïc this weekend due to suspension and, at a minimum, the two matches before the international break against Belgian side Club Brugge in the Champions League and Celta Vigo in La Liga. One positive takeaway at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper is that Luis de la Fuente will almost certainly not call him up for the upcoming matches with the Spanish national team against Georgia and Turkey.
Pedri's absence adds to the already known absences of Raphinha Dias, Pablo Gavi, Marc-André ter Stegen, and Andreas Christensen. The absence of the midfielder from Tegueste is practically the most significant for the German coach, who has started him in all thirteen official matches that Barça has played so far in La Liga and the Champions League. No other player in the Barça squad has played as many minutes as Pedri, the team's playmaker and the prime example of positional play. The most obvious alternatives to his absence are two homegrown players, Marc Casadó and Marc Bernal. The former finished the Clásico as an accidental center-back, while the latter has yet to start a match since... the serious knee injury he suffered in September 2024.
This injury to Pedri, officially confirmed by Barça an hour after this newspaper reported it, is his first after a flawless season in that regard. The Canary Islander gained muscle reliability thanks to substantial changes in his diet and training. Modifying certain habits helped him greatly to put behind him three seasons (all three under Xavi Hernández) marked by injuries and relapses in his quadriceps. However, his last physical setback was a knee sprain he suffered at the European Championship. From a Barça perspective, since recovering from that injury with the national team, he has been a very reliable player for Flick, who has used him in 72 of the 73 matches he has managed as Barça coach. He only missed the 7-1 defeat against Valencia last season due to gastroenteritis, and he only started three matches on the bench: against Valencia at Mestalla (1-2), against Getafe at home (1-0), and against Borussia Dortmund in the second leg of the last Champions League quarter-final (3-1).
Flick will be able to recover Olmo and Lewandowski
Now Pedri's problem is muscular again, and it will force him to stop playing for a good part of November. Flick and his staff They would like him to be available again for the Chelsea-Barça match on the 25th, a top-tier continental fixture, but they know that objective might be too ambitious. Therefore, it's perhaps more realistic for the midfielder to secure his return for Atlético Madrid's visit to Barcelona (who knows if at the Camp Nou) on the 2nd of the Spanish league season, a tournament that will resume in Saudi Arabia after New Year's. In the upcoming matches, Flick will have to manage without the most complete midfielder in the squad, as capable of controlling matches through positioning and passing as he is of leading the statistics for pressure and ball recoveries.
The consolation for Barcelona fans in the short term is that the team will recover important players for the first few days without Pedri. Before hosting Elche, Barça hopes to announce the medical clearances of Robert Lewandowski and Dani Olmo, who were injured during the last international break. And before visiting Club Brugge, he plans to do the same with Joan Garcia, who would return to the goal in place of Wojciech Szczesny.