Monday, April 26, 2021 at 3:57 PM• Dominic Mostert • Last update: 16:26

Pedri’s debut season is probably going better than he would have dreamed beforehand. The only eighteen-year-old midfielder has been a fixture in Ronald Koeman’s starting line-up for months. On Sunday, Pedri participated for 64 minutes in the away match against Villarreal (1-2). Sport calculates a day later that of all the players of Barcelona he has the most number of matches to his name in the 2020/21 season. The youngster made his appearance in 47 of the 48 official games and is the only one to stay ahead of Frenkie de Jong (46 games).

Pedri made his debut in the first of Barcelona on September 27 last year in the home game against Villarreal (4-0 win). Afterwards, the teenager hardly missed a single game and switched his status as a bench seat for that of basic strength and even Spanish A-international. Including his appearances for the national team, in both the A-squad and the Under-21, the football season counts at 54 official games, in which he accounted for three goals and eight assists.

If everything goes according to plan, Pedri will break the 60-game barrier this season. After all, Barcelona still plays six games in LaLiga, while Pedri can also play exhibition games and European Championship matches with the national team of Spain. This season he was only missing during the away match against Ferencváros (0-3 win) in the Champions League on December 2. He then sat on the couch for ninety minutes; Koeman gave several players a break, as qualification for the next round was already a fact.

Because he did belong to the selection, his ‘presence on the match forms of Koeman is one hundred percent’, concludes Sport. In the league match against Alavés (5-1 win) on February 13, he started on the bench for the last time. Since then, he has been allowed to perform fourteen games in a row in the starting eleven: ten league matches, two in the Champions League and two in the Copa del Rey. “The big question now is whether the course of the competition will enable Koeman to give the former Las Palmas player some peace of mind, or whether he should remain standing until the end”, according to the Catalan sports newspaper.

Pedri had a starting place in 36 of the 48 games that Barcelona has completed this season, or 75 percent. Of the twelve games in which he had no starting spot, three were the first three league matches. Barcelona wanted to calm the talent after he came over from Las Palmas for a minimum amount of five million euros. The purchase agreement included many variable clauses regarding, for example, games in the first, games for Spain Under-21 and the Spanish A-team. For example, the call of national coach Luis Enrique cost Barcelona a million euros. Barcelona did add a maximum amount of variable clauses: 22 million euros.

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The platform Transfer market currently estimates the value of Pedri at 70 million euros. No other footballer in the world has made such a big leap in transfer value this season. Pedri started the year with an estimated value of 7.2 million euros. Marcos Llorente, Atlético Madrid midfielder, comes in second with an increase from 16 to 70 million; Florian Wirtz of Bayer Leverkusen saw his estimated value increase from 10 to 55 million euros. Various Spanish media reported earlier this month that Barcelona is working on breaking open Pedri’s contract.

Pedri’s current contract expires next summer, but Barcelona has a unilateral option to extend the partnership until mid-2024. It is not unlikely that the club management, in addition to a financial upgrade, is also planning to extend the contract for another two seasons, until June 30, 2026. The current agreement includes a transfer clause of four hundred million euros. It is expected to remain unchanged.

Although Pedri played the largest number of matches, he was not on the field the longest at Barcelona. Frenkie de Jong came to 4056 playing minutes this season and is therefore the list leader. The last time the midfielder did not appear at kick-off was on January 21 in the cup game against Cornellà. Then he was left out of the selection by Koeman. Lionel Messi (3742), Jordi Alba (3698), Marc-André ter Stegen (3450), Antoine Griezmann (3375) and Clément Lenglet (3342) also played more minutes than Pedri (3224) and that is mainly due to his reserve role the beginning of the season.