Chapter Text
The first time Flick left Pedri on the bench, no one was too surprised. The second time, some started to think he was being a bit harsh on him. The third time, the whole locker room understood that this was going to be a long haul and that even if they tried to mediate, they weren't going to change the coach's mind. To be honest, they weren't even sure they wanted to try.
"Are you a substitute again?" Lamine asked.
The Canary Islander was putting on his shin guards without looking at him.
"Looks like it."
"Are you angry?"
Pedri raised his head.
"No."
"You look angry."
"I always have this face."
"Exactly, you've had that angry face since we got back from the World Cup, brother."
Silence.
"And what the hell are you doing staring at me like that?"
Lamine threw up his hands and nervously took several steps back.
"Nothing, nothing, relax. It was just an observation."
Pedri looked directly at him and snorted. The striker couldn't help but compare him to a black cat with bristling fur and glowing eyes.
Nobody said keeping Pedri on the bench would keep him quiet. In fact, it only got worse with each game. Before, he'd just sit sulking, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at his teammates. Now, things were a little different.
12th minute.
"That pass was trash."
Fermín, sitting next to him, didn't even turn his head.
"Pedri."
"What?"
"Shut up."
"I'm telling the truth."
24th minute.
"He needs to pass it sooner."
31st minute.
"Why the hell are you playing so deep?"
38th minute.
"That substitution makes no sense."
The coach turned from the sidelines, raised an eyebrow, and immediately threw up his arms in surrender.
"I didn't say anything."
Flick looked back at the pitch.
"You said it."
"If you say so."
At halftime, Barça was winning 1-0, but they were being pressed hard by the opposing team, and a feeling that the game could easily be tied hung in the air. Pedri was the last to enter the locker room with the others.
"Well played," he told them.
They all turned to each other in disbelief, then looked at the Canary Islander, as if they were checking that it really was him and not someone who looked very much like him.
"What?" asked Pedri.
"Nothing," said Eric.
"Why are you looking at me?"
"Because you said 'well played' without insulting anyone. This is unheard of!" exclaimed Olmo.
Fermín burst out laughing, and the number 20 looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing."
"Well, stop laughing."
At the back of the locker room, several laughs were muffled by hands. If their partner saw them laughing at the situation like that, they would probably end up being killed.
In the 67th minute, Flick glanced at the bench. The game was getting complicated, and if he didn't make this substitution, he was sure they were going to lose, but he wasn't happy about it.
He pointed to Pedri, who had noticed him glancing at him several times and was already warming up.
"You'll be in in five minutes."
Pedri nodded.
"Okay."
"And stay calm, okay?"
"I am calm."
"Don't yell at the referee, or argue with the opponents, and don't protest every decision."
"I'm not going to do any of that."
The coach looked at him somewhat doubtfully.
"Please, try to remember that this is football, okay? We're not playing for our lives, but we don't want to lose either."
Pedri frowned. He didn't like the way everyone had been talking to him lately. Did they think he was an idiot?
"I know what it is."
"Perfect."
It wasn't the stellar comeback performance everyone expected. He came on in the 72nd minute, and in the 75th he received a yellow card.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Flick shouted from the sidelines.
The Barça player pointed at his opponent and gesticulated wildly with his arms.
"HE PUSHED ME!"
"AND YOU KICKED HIM!"
"BECAUSE HE PUSHED ME!"
Flick put both hands to his head while the rest of the Barça players tried to calm the opposing players down so they wouldn't attack their irate midfielder.
After the match, Pedri left the locker room. As usual, several journalists were waiting in the tunnel trying to get a few questions out of him. One journalist asked:
"Pedri, how did it feel coming off the bench after so many games without playing?"
"Good."
"Were you surprised by the coach's decision?"
"No."
"Do you think you deserved to start?"
"Yes."
"Are you upset?"
"No."
"You seem upset."
Pedri looked him up and down.
"And you look too young to be a journalist."
He kept walking, leaving the journalist with his microphone raised and speechless. Eric and Dani, who had heard and seen the scene from behind, could only slap their foreheads in almost rehearsed synchronization.
The problem was that the bench didn't work, and that last match had shown it, so Flick decided not to risk it again. The following week, the Canary Islander was a substitute again. Then again, and again, and again.
Pedri began to develop a particular hatred for the bench. It wasn't about being a substitute or not playing in matches, but about the bench itself, the seat, the inanimate object he had to sit on for more than ninety minutes. There was a kind of visceral and irrational hatred that the Canary Islander had developed for the poor, expressionless object that was only guilty of giving him aches and pains.
"Why is it so cold?" he asked one day.
"It's a bench, it's always cold," Gavi replied.
"Well, they should fix it."
"What do you want them to do?"
"I don't know. Put in heating, they do it in China."
"Pedri..."
"What?"
"You've been insulting a seat for ten minutes."
"Because it's uncomfortable, and old."
Gavi started counting to one hundred while slowly exhaling to avoid snapping. Little by little, even he was surprised by his own recent patience. Perhaps it's true that when you put up with capricious children, you start to develop a kind of drama-fighting raincoat, like parents do with their babies.
One day, while they were warming up, Ferran appeared on the stadium's big screen in a new advertisement for a French clothing brand. The number 20 stood still, staring at him intently and scrutinizing him. The Valencian was smiling at the screen while striking various poses, showing off that stupid French fashion that the Canary Islander hated so much.
"That stupid smile again, and those tacky clothes..." Pedri narrowed his eyes.
Fermín looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"It was just Ferri."
"I know."
"Does it bother you that he wears nice clothes?"
"No, because they aren't nice clothes."
"You've been staring at the screen for thirty seconds."
"It's in the way, it's annoying."
"It's fifty meters above us."
Pedri looked back at the field.
"Shut up."
The impromptu meeting began because Gavi had said:
"I can't take it anymore."
No one asked what he meant. They all knew.
They were in a small room in the locker room. The manager had closed the door, being the last to enter, and Raphinha was sitting with his arms crossed. Fermín had a water bottle in his hands and was playing with it while Lamine was looking at his phone. The only one who seemed a little nervous was Cubarsí, who looked genuinely worried. Dani and Eric were further away, sitting on one of the benches at the back.
"Where's Pedri?" Flick asked.
"In the gym," Fermín replied.
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Well…" He paused. "He's arguing with a stationary bike."
The coach closed his eyes.
"Okay… well, it's not that serious."
Raphinha sighed.
"We need to talk about this."
"I don't know what to do anymore," Dani admitted wearily.
"Nobody knows what to do," Gavi said.
"We can just stop giving him the time of day," Cubarsí suggested.
Everyone looked at him.
"We've already tried that," Eric said. "He gets angry because we ignore him."
"Well, talk to him."
"He gets angry because we talk to him."
"Then..."
"He also gets angry if we don't talk to him."
Silence.
Lamine looked up from his phone.
"He's messed up."
"He's unbearable," Raphinha corrected.
"Both things could be true."
Flick slumped against one of the lockers, which clanged.
"I've been trying to calm him down for three weeks now, guys."
"Well, it's not working," Gavi said.
"I've noticed."
"He's worse, actually."
"I've noticed that too."
"Much worse."
"Gavi."
"What?"
"Do you want to sit on the bench too? You can keep Pedri company."
The man from Seville remained silent. He'd rather run a thousand kilometers under a blazing sun without a bottle of water than put up with his friend in the hysterical state he was in.
Fermín took out his phone.
"I have a list."
Raphinha raised an eyebrow.
"A list?"
"Yes."
"Of what?"
"Of things Pedri has done this week."
Flick stared at him.
"Why do you have a list?"
"Because I need to prove we're not exaggerating."
"Show it to me."
Fermín unlocked his phone.
"Monday: He called an assistant 'useless' because he couldn't find his boots."
"He found them," Cubarsí added.
"Under his own locker."
"Tuesday," Fermín continued, refocusing on the list, "he argued with the cook because there was fish."
Raphinha frowned.
"Doesn't he like fish?"
"He does."
"So?"
"He said Ferrán preferred meat."
Silence.
Lamine burst out laughing, and Pau punched him in the shoulder to shut him up.
"That can't be..."
"Yes, it can."
Fermín continued.
"Wednesday: He told Flick that training was trash."
"He's said that a million times," Gavi pointed out.
"He's said that a million times already. But then he asked me to show him the exercise again because 'Ferrán did it better.'"
Hansi put a hand to his face.
"Thursday: he got angry because someone had moved his locker."
"Who moved it?" Raphinha asked.
"Nobody."
"What do you mean, nobody?"
"It was his same locker, he's always had that locker. We don't swap lockers."
"Oh."
"Friday: he spent twenty minutes watching a PSG match."
"And?"
"Ferrán scored."
"But that's good, isn't it?"
"It doesn't seem so. Pedri kicked the TV off."
Flick looked up in horror.
"The TV?"
"Yes."
"Did he break it?"
"No."
"Well, that's a good thing…" Lamine said under his breath.
"But he said it was Luis Enrique's fault."
The door opened, and everyone fell silent for a second when they saw it was Pedri who had just walked in. Fermín almost instantly locked his phone and put it in his pocket.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing," said Gavi.
Pedri looked around.
"Why are you all here?"
"Meeting."
"About what?"
"Nothing."
Pedri narrowed his eyes.
"Are you talking about me?"
No one answered. At that moment, each of them was working out a perfectly planned evacuation plan to get out of that room in less than a minute before a full-blown fight broke out.
"You're talking about me," he concluded.
"No," said Raphinha.
"Yes."
"No."
"Raphinha, am I a joke to you?"
"What?"
"You're a terrible liar."
Raphinha raised his hands.
"Okay. Yes. We're talking about you."
Pedri put the bottle down on the table.
"What's wrong?"
Fermín pointed at him.
"We want you to be normal."
"I am normal."
They all spoke at once.
"No."
"No way."
"Absolutely not."
"Zero."
Pedri looked at them, offended.
"What's wrong with you guys?"
Gavi stood up.
"YOU'RE ANGRY ALL THE FUCKING DAY!"
Silence.
Pedri blinked, his face completely serious and stoic.
"I'm not angry."
"YOU INSULTED A BICYCLE!"
"Because it wasn't working, it wouldn't move."
"IT WAS A STATIONARY BIKE!"
"Well, it was incorrectly calibrated."
Olmo covered his face.
"Oh my God, kill me."
There was more shouting, scolding, flying objects, and for some inexplicable reason, Pedri ended up opening the water bottle and pouring it over himself, soaking himself from head to toe.
The third consecutive match in which Pedri started on the bench was what made Ferran start to suspect something was wrong.
They were in the PSG locker room after training, and Ferran had his phone in his hand, watching the highlights of Barça's last match. Again, Pedri was on the bench, again.
"What are you doing?" Doué asked from his locker.
"Nothing."
"You've been watching the same video for five minutes."
Ferran locked his phone.
"Pedri's on the bench again."
The Frenchman looked up.
"Again?"
"Yes."
"Is he injured?"
"I don't know." Ferran unlocked his phone again. "He doesn't seem like it."
"Then he must be carrying a knock."
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because if he were carrying a knock, they would have announced it by now."
Désiré shrugged.
"It might be the coach's decision."
The Spaniard frowned.
"So many games in a row?"
"Maybe."
"Pedri, my Pedri, a substitute for more than three games in a row because of a tactical decision?"
"Yes."
He placed his phone on the bench, clearly frustrated.
"That doesn't make sense. He's the best player they have."
The Frenchman disagreed with that statement, but he knew his teammate's fondness for the Barcelona player, so he simply let him continue with his flattering remarks.
That afternoon, while they were having dinner, Ferran brought up the subject again.
"Do you guys think he's injured?"
Fabián shook his head as he chewed.
"I haven't read anything."
"So?"
"Well, he's probably angry."
Ferran looked at him.
"Angry?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I have no idea. But in the pictures, he looks angry, and you know how Pedri is, it wouldn't be surprising. I remember a match with the national team where Luis Enrique left him out of the game because he was sulking."
The striker lowered his gaze.
"He's not like that. He doesn't get angry for no reason; he always has a reason."
"Everyone gets angry, and believe me, he does, and often over silly things."
"Not him."
Ruiz laughed.
"Are you saying he never gets angry? I've been with you guys on the national team, Ferri, I know what I'm talking about."
"No." Ferran shook his head. "Of course he gets angry, but not like this."
"What's the difference?"
He paused, scratching his trimmed beard before answering.
"When he's really angry, you can tell."
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"No, no." Ferran looked up. "When Pedri is angry with someone, you know why. He's too transparent, it's so obvious."
"So what?"
"If he were angry, the guys would know what to do. It wouldn't be lasting so many games. It has to be something else I can't see."
The other Spaniard simply shrugged, unsure what to say, while the Valencian continued trying to decipher what was happening in Barcelona through the images.
What Ferran didn't understand was that he was the only one capable of doing what he was saying. He never considered that in those moments he spoke of, in those outbursts of anger that he saw as rational but the rest of the world didn't, he was the anchor that kept Pedri under control.