If you have to value an attacking line because it’s goals, it seems that there’s no one better than the one formed by Messi, Villa and Pedro, that one which gathers the world’s best football player with two world champions in South Africa 201o, and over any other thing, they are backed up by 86 goals and the 25 matches they have played together places them as the favourite attacking line of Pep Guardiola. “They are very different players, but they fit formidably together, maybe because they are different”, states Tito Vilanova, assistant of the Barcelona coach. Maybe it’s because of that that they mix naturally, combine as a principle and, when they don’t set off towards the goal; they defend with the same skill and conviction. In the middle of the sophisticated game of Barça, Pedro’s game has some primitive details, features from other times in which there was no more start other than the team.
Messi, the flea; Villa the Guaje, and Pedro, the cuttlefish, as the player is known since he arrived to Barça C, will meet again tonight, if there aren’t any surprises, because that Pedro has already been discharged, once overcoming the problems in his hamstrings which forced him to retire in Sevilla the 3rd of March and which have prevented him from participate in the last two matches against Getafe and Villareal. In fact, the player from the Canary Islands could have played last Saturday in El Madrigal, but Guardiola preferred to give him four more resting days. So, he has been one week training in morning and afternoon sessions. “He’s fit”, they say at the Medical staff. And they are right, he has lost a kilo and sharpened his canine tooth, and I couldn’t have said it better myself: the brace it’s fixing his teeth is about to finish.
Guardiola use to say that, if a face could define the team, more than Valdés’ effort, Xavi’s talent, Iniesta’s easiness, Keita’s kindness or Messi’s quality, nothing would be best than Pedro’s smile. “He’s a hard worker, he’s talent and quality, he’s modest, a very good guy and he play with a natural nerve”, states the Barcelona coach who, when he sees Pedro on the pitch, is usually calm: he transmits the same joy as capacity of work.
Messi explains it his way: “Pedro goes always the first to the pressure and he transmits it to us. At the time of attacking he creates a lot of opportunities and has good eye for the goal. “I hope he will be ready” “He doesn’t stop. He always offers himself, in short and long passes, he helps us a lot to recover balls”, states Xavi. Mircea, Lucescu and their Shacktar have suffered it. “Against us he has always played good”, the Romanian player said yesterday, who hasn’t forgot the goal that scored them in Mónaco and which decided the European Super Cup in 2010. “Even in the match we won in Camp Nou, he played well. He surprised us all with his pace. It’s a player who attacks very well the holes and it’s very good when shooting, because he can do it with the right and with the left foot”, admits the Ukranian coach when talks about the cuttlefish, who has scored three goals and given one assist in his seven matches in Champions.
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