Pedri's tale of injury woe: Has Barcelona's Golden Boy been broken for good?

Pedri is not a La Masia graduate. It is one of the greatest misconceptions in recent football history that the silky midfielder came through the same academy as Gavi, Ansu Fati and co. Instead, the Blaugrana hashed out a deal with then-Segunda Division side Las Palmas in late 2019 to sign Pedri the following summer, agreeing on an initial €5 million (£4.3m/$5.5m) fee - then regarded as a significant sum for a 16-year-old with little first-team experience.

Still, there was a sense that Barca had a real talent on their hands. In the months between agreeing his transfer and Pedri's arrival, the Spaniard impressed for Las Palmas, becoming the youngest goalscorer in club history and tallying 10 goal involvements in the second tier.

"Pedri is the signing of the decade" Spanish publication Marca claimed in October 2020. The teenager had just turned in a mesmerising performance against Juventus in the Champions League, his display outshining that of a certain Lionel Messi - despite the Barca legend burying a crucial stoppage-time penalty that sealed a 2-0 win.

That game capped off a rapid rise to prominence for Pedri, one in which the teenager needed less than a month in Catalunya to crack Ronald Koeman's starting XI. He soon became a fixture in a buzzing midfield, and a rare bright spot for a Barcelona team in transition.

Issues started to arrive for Pedri because, you could argue, he was playing too well. The 2020-21 campaign was a grim one for Barca, Messi's swansong ending in a third-placed La Liga finish. Pedri, the humming midfield presence, offered hope that the post-Messi years could be just as beautiful, though.

A series of managers bought into that hype. Koeman handed him 53 appearances in his debut campaign, rarely giving him a day off as Barca fought to stay alive in three competitions. Luis Enrique was even more assertive with the youngster, a he called Pedri into his Spain squad in March 2021, and had him start two Euro 2020 qualifiers. By the time the tournament proper came around, Pedri was the focal point of the squad, playing all-but one minute as La Roja made a semi-final run. He covered the most ground in the tournament, was named in the Team of the Tournament, and took home the Young Player of the Tournament award.

That should have been enough, but Pedri was then inexplicably shipped off to Japan to repreent Spain in the Olympics. Unsurprisingly given the amount of matches he had already played over the previous 12 months, he turned in a series of beleaguered showings for his country. By the end of it all, he had played 73 games - and over 4,000 minutes - in less than a year.

It didn't take a medical expert to figure out what would happen next, and Pedri's hamstring was the first muscle to tell him that it had had enough. He missed three games - and less than two weeks - with a minor strain in September 2021, with it the kind of injury that top-level athletes pick up all the time. Unfortunately, for Pedri, it was a sign of things to come.

Pedri's second injury of 2021 came just three days after he returned from the first. It was nearly identical in its area affected - but had a far more serious in impact.

Pedri missed three full months of action and watched from the sidelines for 23 games as new manager Xavi struggled to get the Blaugrana to tick. Still, the midfielder penned a massive new contract to commit his future to the Catalans.

Pedri returned in the New Year, and just when he seemed to be finding his groove again, yet another injury hit. This time, it was a more serious muscle tear, the club admitting in a rather grim statement: "It means he will be unavailable for selection until he recovers from the injury."

The subtext was clear: Pedri wouldn't play again that campaign. The season after making 73 appearances, one of Europe's hottest prospects only managed 26.

The summer of 2022 was predicted to be invaluable for Pedri. With no tournament football to worry about, he was able to recover in relative comfort - and didn't need to be rushed back to fitness to suit a frantic calendar.

He was therefore a day-one starter for Barca in their 2022-23 campaign, and played regularly as a result. He formed a deadly understanding with a revived Frenkie de Jong and frantic Gavi, the trio buzzing around in front of Sergio Busquets as the Blaugrana steadily picked up results during the first half of the campaign.

Inevitably, though, it all went wrong again. Pedri went down in the first half of Barcelona's Europa League knockout clash with Manchester United, picking up another hamstring injury that would effectively rule him out of the rest of the season.

Barca's title charge had hit full steam by that point, but Pedri still missed 11 games - including a Copa del Rey semi-final Clasico that Xavi's side lost to Real Madrid.

Barcelona's title defence always figured to be tricky. Real Madrid retooled in the summer of 2023, bringing in Jude Bellingham to bolster an aging squad. Barca, meanwhile, made a series of smaller deals - and didn't appear to get immediately stronger in any area. They needed Pedri more than ever.

And at that crucial juncture, the injuries returned. Another hamstring issue, this time sustained in training, kept him out from August until November. Barca's hopes of repeating steadily faded during that spell.

Pedri returned to action in the winter and was just finding form when it happened again. The Spaniard had recovered from the hamstring issue sustained in August, and though he was in an out of the line-up to begin with, in recent weeks, he seemed to have discovered some of his old self. He was running with his usual gusto, and finding pockets of space, keeping the Barca attack ticking over.

And then, the same issue. Pedri limped off the pitch without help in Bilbao, but couldn't control his emotions as he took in the rest of the contest from the bench.

Barcelona don't have the best recent history when it comes to talented youngsters struggling with injury. Ansu Fati and Gavi, too, have seen major injuries stall their young careers, and although both may yet return to their best form - Gavi, in particular, would seem to be on track - a pattern has certainly formed in Catalunya.

It is not that Pedri has suffered from a glut of knocks around his body. Rather, he has struggled from one specific issue, impacting his career repeatedly. There has been scattered talk of surgery to fix his hamstrings, and reports of a heavy personal training program set up to ensure long-term durability.

Fundamentally, though, he is a player who played too much, too young. He has been on the pitch for more minutes than some top-level 25-year-olds in his career thus far, and coaches believe that he is simply too good to leave out of the line-up when he's fit.

Pedri's career isn't over. But at this rate, with this mismanagement, it's hard to see him staying fit for a long period of time.