Pedri’s return to the Barça eleven changes the face of Flick, his team and the Camp Nou. Under the leadership of the ‘8’ everything seems easier, including scoring five goals against Atlético, which the Blaugrana club needs to achieve the comeback and get into the Copa del Rey final.
The big change is that this time there will be the Canarian player and Raphinha, two weapons that Flick did not have in the first leg. Possibly the two most important players on the team, along with Lamine Yamal, will look for an epic that, as Pedri told RTVE, ”if anyone can do it, it’s Barcelona.
Pedri, with Barcelona – PSG in memory
Beyond those words that are spoken in the locker room, Pedri also trusts in facts. “Barcelona already lost the first leg of the tie 4-0 and came back, hopefully this will be the second.” Not only that, but the ‘8’ too positively values his record of comebacks, especially the last year: ”there were several games in which we were losing by two and we came back in 20 minutes, let’s see if in 90 we can do it with 4”.
And Atlético suffered it in this same round last year. They found themselves 0-2 at the Camp Nou in the 15th minute of the match, but the Barça storm turned the tables quickly. From 0-2 at 15′ to 3-2 at 40′, before the break.
A perfect example that, if the ball wants to go in, something that has been difficult for the Blaugrana in recent games, they can achieve a comeback. Of course, in that match they ‘ran out’ of gas in the last 15 minutes until the final 4-4, something that is not worth it at the Camp Nou.
The Camp Nou, a ‘hell’ to overcome
This stadium, which is seeing the Cup semi-finals again after several years (last year’s was in Montjuic), also seems like a key stage for Pedri. The Canary Islander addresses his fans to tell them that ”it has to be hell”.
Pedri knows that it is complicated but “if everyone comes together, nothing is impossible for Barça.” Pedri also takes refuge in the good moment of Lamine Yamal after his hat trick against Villarreal, of whom he says that “when he puts into perspective how young he still is, what he does continues to surprise.”
Pedri, already 100% after an injury that made him miss several games, knows that “It is important that Lamine Yamal recovers his smile,” as he said after finishing the match against the ‘yellow submarine’.
The statistics go against him against Simeone, since of the 41 clashes that the Argentine has faced with the culés, only one result that has occurred would give Barcelona a ticket to the final. Much against it, but Pedri does not lose confidence in a young group “who, perhaps, because their inexperience makes them more unconscious and see a comeback as more possible than anyone else.”
