Barcelona have a new La Masia star shining on tour. Introducing… Pedro Fernandez

New York Times

2 days ago

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Few expected Barcelona's pre-season to be another marked by a new La Masia talent announcing themselves on a bigger stage.
Back in 2023, Fermin Lopez grabbed his moment. Last summer, Marc Bernal and Marc Casado shone brightest among a travelling squad that featured 16 Barca youth teamers. By contrast, this year, with practically all of the senior squad having been available since training resumed earlier in July, Hansi Flick's group for their tour of Japan and South Korea features just five.
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But Pedro Fernandez — known as 'Dro', more on that later — is the latest to step up. Having already established himself as the sensation of Barca's first weeks of training back home, on Sunday, he produced a delightful 15-minute cameo in the club's opening game of a three-match trip, scoring the third goal in a 3-1 win over Vissel Kobe.
Alongside 18-year-old left-back Jofre Torrents, Fernandez was one of just two youth academy players to feature in the game, and while Torrents' involvement only came because Gerard Martin wasn't fully fit (there might now be a spot up for grabs as a backup to Alejandro Balde in that position), Dro's time on the pitch was entirely down to Flick's personal choice.
Fernandez, 17, spent most of last season with Barcelona's under-18 age group. He still has not made his debut with Barcelona Atletic — the club's reserve side that is essentially the first team of the youth academy. When he joined with the seniors for training for the first time this summer, some might have expected more established members of Barca Atletic, or the under-19 side that won last season's UEFA Youth League (as well as league and cup titles at domestic level), to have been promoted ahead of him.
Either way, he has definitely taken his chance. Sources from the backroom staff — who, like all those cited here, preferred to speak anonymously as they did not have permission to comment — say Barca's German manager Flick has been hugely impressed by Fernandez in pre-season. Then came his brilliantly taken goal in Sunday's 3-1 friendly win in Kobe.
'I didn't even know how to celebrate, to be honest,' Fernandez said after the match.
'It was unbelievable. I came in a bit nervous, the first time with the best club in the world, but then the ball came to my feet on the edge of the box and I gave it a go. Hansi and my team-mates calmed me down before the game and I felt so comfortable.
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'Flick told me to do what I know to do with the ball, and then off the ball to push and press as hard as I can. Everyone has congratulated me for the goal, it's just unreal.'
Barcelona signed Fernandez in the summer of 2022, having monitored him for years. He was playing with his boyhood club, Val Minor, one of the most renowned youth teams in the north-west of Spain. Based in Nigran, Galicia, where Fernandez was born to a mum from the Philippines and a Spanish dad, footballers such as the Alcantara brothers, Thiago and Rafinha, as well as former Leeds forward Rodrigo Moreno and Liverpool's Stefan Bajcetic started out there, too.
Val Minor and Nigran are still very much close to his heart. This summer, before joining the Barca seniors for pre-season, he used the Val Minor facilities to start working, under the supervision of a physical coach following instructions from Barcelona.
'Dro started playing with us when he was four or five years old and kept playing with us up until under-14s,' says Val Minor's sporting director, Javier Lago. 'At this age, the kids are playing futsal until they grow up and start playing football.
'One of the coaches we have in the club, Jose Antonio Covelo, is a Barca scout who played for Barcelona back in the 1980s. So it was thanks to him that Barcelona had him monitored for quite a long time.
'In terms of talent, especially in the last third of the pitch, he is off the charts. He's among the best I've ever seen. I've managed Thiago and Rafinha Alcantara, seen Rodrigo Moreno… well, Dro is around that level for sure.'
The story behind Fernandez being called 'Dro' dates from this stage. When he started playing at Val Minor, one of his team-mates was called Pedro Villar. With two Pedros in the team, it was decided they should have nicknames in order to differentiate them: Pedro Fernandez became 'Dro', and Pedro Villar became 'Villi'.
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Dro and Villi became, by some distance, the best players in their age group at Val Minor — to the point that Barcelona decided to sign them both in summer 2022. There, the nicknames became even more handy because in their team at La Masia was Pedro Rodriguez. So, for the sake of better communication, Dro kept being Dro.
'Dro had a lot of suitors back in the day,' Lago adds. 'Before leaving to Barca, he had gone to train with Celta Vigo in their youth ranks. He had plenty of offers, but in the end, both decided going to La Masia was the best thing, Dro and Villi. We try to go to Barcelona every year and check on them both. It's something we like to do as a club. We are all good friends here.'
At Barca, Fernandez has played as an attacking midfielder, both as a No 8 and No 10, as well as a left-winger. His technical finesse, powerful striking of the ball and ability to play in tight spaces between the lines have been a difference-maker from the first day he joined. Last season, he scored two goals in the 107 minutes he played across seven games with Barca's under-19 in the UEFA Youth League.
La Masia's coaches opted not to rush him into men's football, but his talent was never in doubt. Sources at Barca say his promotion to the senior setup for this pre-season is all part of a well-established plan to let him develop physically, adding that keeping him playing at age-group level means he benefits from the experience and responsibility that comes with a major role in the team.
Having now had his first taste of life with the senior group, many fans are getting excited. Could he become the next La Masia star to break through? He seems to be up for the challenge.
'The first-team dressing room is brilliant and they have helped me a lot,' Fernandez said on Sunday. 'The first day I joined them for training, I didn't even dare to go and have breakfast with them. I did not know if I could. I stayed in the dressing room and I didn't know if I was allowed to check my phone either in there.
'I think of myself as a technical player. I like to dribble past players and have fun on the pitch. I try to do what I know, and that's it. Now I have to be patient, go step by step because this is just getting started.'