Pedri can call himself a Barcelona player since last summer. The attacking midfielder could have played for a Spanish top club earlier in his still early career. However, only seventeen-year-old Pedri was told a clear ‘no’ from Real Madrid’s technical management after an internship in February 2018.

“I trained with Real for a week”, Pedri recalls Cadena SER. “I was then told at the office that I was not good enough. That rejection gave me even more motivation.” The Barcelona promise is somehow glad that the Royal brought him bad news at the time. “What would I say to the person who turned me down? I would thank him, because now I play for a club where I am appreciated. When I was very little I thought Barcelona was a great club. I wouldn’t want anywhere else. play.”

For Pedri, who scored for the first time in the Champions League match with Ferencvaros (5-1) on behalf of Barcelona, ​​a childhood dream has come true. He can play together with Lionel Messi. “That is a dream for every child. It is not normal that I can sit in one dressing room with him. No Barcelona player gets used to that. He is really a great player who does what he wants. I really watch my eyes off when he passes two or three players and then scores a goal. “

Koeman is impressed: ‘Nobody saw his development coming’

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At the end of October, Pedri faced the club that rejected him in 2018. Real won 1-3 against Barcelona at the Camp Nou. Trainer Ronald Koeman had a starting place in store for the young Spaniard. “I heard two days before the race that I would start in El Clásico”, Pedri continues. “I always sleep well before a big game, but then it was different. I could hardly believe it,” said the midfielder, who has often been compared to club icons Xavi and Andrés Iniesta. “That’s great, although I just have to stay myself. But if I have to choose I will go for Iniesta, because I am a bit like him in terms of game.”

Koeman recently called Pedri the player who ‘surprised him the most’. “Mainly because I didn’t know him very well, Pedri. I knew Barcelona had taken him over from Las Palmas and I had seen a few images of him. But no one saw his development coming or the way he shows himself now. age seventeen playing and training with the best players in Barcelona with the performance he has shown so far is something to be happy about “, it said in an extensive interview with Mundo Deportivo.