The last time Pedro Rodriguez took on a team from Manchester in the Champions League he ended up dining with the dinosaurs.
After Barcelona beat Manchester United 3-1 at Wembley in 2011, the team took the European Cup to London’s Natural History Museum where they had their celebratory dinner in the shadow of a diplodocus.
‘It was spectacular, the perfect end to the perfect day. Everything had gone right, the game, getting the goal and the celebration with the whole family afterwards,’ says Pedro of the party that incorporated the players’ customary post-match sushi meal and included the appearance of the trophy to a rousing rendition of ‘We are the Champions’.
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Unsung hero: Pedro Rodriguez is in sparkling form with nine goals in his last 14 matches
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Memories: Pedro opened the scoring for Barca in the 3-1 Champions League final win at Wembley in 2011
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Wealth of talent: Manchester City will have to be at their best to stop Lionel Messi and Co
EURO WATCH
Champions League round of 16: Manchester City v Barcelona (tomorrow, 7.45pm).
Lionel Messi overhauled Alfredo Di Stefano’s La Liga goals tally as Barca warmed up for the Etihad by thrashing Rayo Vallecano 6-0. Messi struck twice to make it 228 goals from 263 games, one more than Real Madrid great Di Stefano managed in 329 matches. Messi, 26, is joint third with Raul on the all-time list behind Telmo Zarra (251) and Hugo Sanchez (234). Substitute Neymar also netted and Barca coach Gerardo Martino said: ‘When the team’s having fun we play better — and a lot of people had fun.’
Some players found the 1,000-strong gathering in London SW7 after the game overpowering and left long before the 2am finish but Pedro, ever the enthusiast, has only fond memories.
The son of a petrol station attendant who grew up playing on the pitches of a Tenerife sports centre that is now named after him, he had scored the all-important first goal at Wembley — Mr Reliable, unflappable in the face of making history.
‘I saw (Edwin) Van der Sar ready to dive to his right, across his goal, so picked my spot at the near post,’ he says of the moment he got his first-half shot away a fraction of a second before Nemanja Vidic’s right boot arrived to block. He has a piece of the net that bulged as he beat the United keeper.
‘Gerard (Pique) takes the nets and cuts them up so that everyone has a piece and I have mine at home,’ he says. And he has a square from Rome, where Barcelona had beaten Manchester United two years earlier.
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Memento: Gerard Pique cut up pieces of the net and gave it to everyone
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Inspiration: Pep Guardiola brought Pedro into the first team and developed him as a player
PEDRO IN NUMBERS
18 Major trophies won by Pedro, including two Champions League titles, four La Liga crowns and two FIFA Club World Cups for Barcelona, plus the World Cup and European Championships with Spain.
5ft 6½in The winger’s diminutive height, equal to Lionel Messi and Alexis Sanchez. He weighs just 10st 1lb.
6 In 2009-10 Pedro became the first player to score in six competitions in the same season: Spanish Super Cup, European Super Cup, Champions League, Liga, Copa del Rey and Club World Cup. Messi did it two years later.
50 La Liga goals scored by Pedro in his career. In total, he has chalked up 85 goals from 252 appearances in all competitions since making his debut in January 2008
They reached that final only because of Andres Iniesta’s last-minute goal against Chelsea in the semi-final. ‘John Terry came into the dressing room afterwards and shook everyone’s hand and congratulated us,’ he remembers. ‘It had been a strange game and it had seemed throughout they were going to reach the final, so it surprised us all to see him. They are usually the moments when it is hurting the most and it showed a lot of courage.’
At just 26 and already 250 games into his Barca career, Pedro is chasing his third Champions League medal. It was in the 2008-09 season that Pep Guardiola was promoted from B team coach at Barcelona and decided to take the forward with him to the first team. By the end of 2009, Guardiola had won six trophies and Pedro had scored in every competition.
‘He never changed the way he was as a person or the way he worked,’ he says of his former coach. ‘The motivational videos, the detailed analysis of the rivals, the constant offering up of solutions.’
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Crucial role: Pedro, just 26, is already 250 games into his career
Pedro describes the short film Guardiola showed his players of Dick Hoyt, the marathon runner who pushed his disabled son Rick in more than 1,000 races so the two could compete together. ‘This was just before the Barca B team played the first leg of the third division play-off semi-final,’ he says.
A year later, Guardiola was leading the first team to Rome to face Manchester United — and this time he had prepared a montage of images of all his players, Pedro included, and scenes from the film Gladiator to motivate the squad. Pedro was a late substitute in the 2-0 win.
‘We had a long conversation before he left the club and I thanked him. When a coach trusts you enough to take you out of the youth side and put you into the first team of one of the best sides in the world, it’s not an easy decision.’
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Development: Pedro may not be the same player if he had not been managed by Guardiola
Pedro knows he may have gone unnoticed had another coach, such as Jose Mourinho, who was interviewed for the job, taken over at the Nou Camp. There is an ordinariness to him that has made it easy for others, at best, to overlook him or, at worst, look down at him.
This is the player to whom Real Madrid’s Ronaldo famously said, during one El Clasico fracas, ‘and who are you?’ as Pedro intervened during a touchline melee.
‘Who is Pedro?’ was sarcastically used as a headline by the Catalan press for weeks after, every time he scored.
There was a similar reaction the night he made his league debut, coming on as a substitute for Samuel Eto’o with instructions from the bench to relay to Thierry Henry that he had to move to a more central position.
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Competition: Thierry Henry (left) and then Zlatan Ibrahimovic have come and gone during Pedro's time
‘I said, “Titi, the boss wants you to play through the middle”. Henry looked at me as if to say, “What the hell is this enano (dwarf) trying to tell me?”’
Did trying to break into a first team that contained Eto’o, Henry and, a season later, Zlatan Ibrahimovic ever make Pedro feel he would have to leave?
‘Perhaps without Guardiola’s support I would have lost heart and looked for a solution away from the club,’ he says.
There were whispers as recently as the start of this season that he might have to do just that, but he has responded with 17 goals, his best total yet.
‘Now we have Alexis (Sanchez), (Leo) Messi and Neymar here and another big-name player will probably arrive in the summer. The competition for places never stops.’
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Never ending: Top players such as Neymar are always arriving to compete for places
Is Pedro going to survive without Guardiola fighting his corner? Beyond the timid exterior there is a steely determination.
‘I owe Pep for taking a chance on a young kid but it was still down to me to take that opportunity,’ he says. Having been a beneficiary of Barcelona’s youth system, does he see Manchester City’s attempts to build something similar in England succeeding?
‘It’s hard to put the model in place but there are directors at City who have been here and I’m sure that some years from now they will be able to achieve their goals.’
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Old friends: Pedro will face Spain team-mates such as David Silva (above) and Jesus Navas (below)
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City’s principal architect is Txiki Begiristain, who oversaw Pedro’s first big Barca contract. ‘I hope it goes well for him because he is a good guy. He was always someone I could confide in,’ he says.
He will face other old friends on the pitch, coming up against fellow Canary Islander David Silva as well as Jesus Navas, who came on for him in the 2010 World Cup final win over Holland in Johannesburg.
‘He is more of a winger in the purest sense of the word. He goes past people on the outside. I look for the diagonal run inside a little bit more. But there are lots of similarities, too. He is having a great season. For a long time he was someone who most people in Spain thought should be playing in a great side. Now he is.’
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Much to prove: City are yet to truly prove themselves on the European stage
City are yet to prove their greatness on the Champions League stage. But beating Barcelona would go a long way to them doing that.
‘We will be prepared,’ says Pedro. ‘We have definitely drawn the worst team possible but knowing how strong they are will just make us more focused than ever.’
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