Pedro reaches 150 official matches for FC Barcelona

In his 150 official matches, the striker has scored 52 goals, many of them decisive, for FC Barcelona.

Pedro Rodríguez played in his 150th official match for FC Barcelona tonight at the BayArena against Bayer Leverkusen. The 24-year-old striker made his debut for Barça’s first team, whilst under the management of Frank Rijkaard, four years ago. It was in January 12, 2008 when Pedrito, his preferred nickname at the time, came on for Samuel Eto’o in the dying minutes of the game against Real Madrid (matchday 19).

Since then he’s played 89 league matches, 18 Cup matches, 32 Champions League matches, 5 Spanish Super Cup matches, 2 European Super Cup matches and 4 Club World Cup games.

Frank Rijkaard was the manager that gave the then reserve side player his debut with the first team. However, it was under Pep Guardiola, Perdo’s manager during Barça B’s promotion-winning year, that the Spaniard made room for himself in the first team. Under Guardiola, Pedro’s quality and goalscoring prowess have been on display for nearly three and a half years. His first goal for the team was in San Mames in the Spanish Super Cup in the summer of 2009 and since then he’s scored 52 goals in the Barça strip. The player also has a knack for scoring decisive goals, like the overtime goal in Monaco during the European Super Cup, or in the final of the Club World Cup that brought Barça level with Estudiantes minutes before full time.

Goals in every competition

In 2009, Pedro was the first player to ever score in six different competitions in the same year. He nabbed the record on December 16, 2009, in Abu Dhabi in the semifinals of the Club World Cup. That was the only remaining competition that he needed to score in after netting goals in the league, Champions League, King’s Cup and both the Spanish and European Super Cups. (via FCBarcelona.cat)