Western media: Barcelona and the national team rely heavily on Pedri, and his absence due to injury will be a huge loss

Recently, Spanish media eldesmarque talked about Pedri's injury. They said that the player's absence is a huge loss to both Barcelona and the Spanish national team.

Barcelona confirmed that Pedri has torn the distal biceps femoris of his left leg and will miss about a month and a half. During this period, he will not only miss many of the club's games, but will also be unable to participate in the Spanish national team's training camp at the end of 2025.

This season, Pedri has participated in more than 90% of the game time, continuing the good form of last season and reaching a very high competitive level. Both Barcelona and the Spanish national team, coached by De la Fuente, have relied on Pedri's performance in the past few months, so his absence will be a huge loss for both teams.

Through big data analysis, we can see that when Pedri is on the court, Barcelona's offensive statistics have improved. For example, expected goals, threat and shots on goal have all increased, but the biggest increase has been in touches in the opposition penalty area per 90 minutes, which has increased by more than one point.

In terms of defense, Barcelona's defensive performance remained basically the same when Pedri was on the court, but it reduced the number of passes the opponent made before being interrupted by defensive actions. In terms of team coordination, Pedri's participation increased the number of expected assists, ball possession rate and the accuracy of the final pass, but also reduced the team's vertical passing frequency. Without Pedri, the team's passing is more direct, with an average vertical pass score increase of 3.67 points per game.

This shows that when Pedri is on the court, Barcelona's style becomes more delicate and complex. In fact, Pedri is one of the players who completes the most passes per game (72), is also the player who completes the most long-distance passes (10 meters or more) among midfielders (17.3), and is also one of the players with the most shots and dribbles from the midfield position.

Compared with other midfielders in the five major leagues, Pedri has the highest participation rate in the domestic league. He ranks second in advancing the ball, advancing 10 meters or more 25 times per 90 minutes, second only to Vitinha.

Pedri's statistics this season are very good: in 13 games in La Liga and the Champions League, his pass success rate was as high as 89.6% (1069 of 958 successful passes), he had 21 key passes, only lost the ball 10 times, and his touch success rate was also as high as 87.9% (1488 of 1309 successful touches). His actions created an expected threat value of 5.64, ranking third in Spain.

Compared with last season, Pedri's performance this season has been significantly improved. In addition to maintaining his original strengths, he also became more proactive. He now has almost one shot per game and his shots are closer to the goal (average distance 15.1 meters compared to 18.6 meters last season). On the defensive side, his defensive confrontation success rate also increased from 69% to 75.3%.