Barcelona enter Super Cup season with Man United closing in on deal for Pedro

Reigning league, cup and European champions Barcelona imminently head into Super Cup season, but according to Andy Mitten, it will likely be without Spain forward Pedro who is closing in on a move to Manchester United.

Barcelona forward Pedro is expected to seal a move to Manchester united this summer. Ander Gillenea / AFP

Barcelona take to the Camp Nou on Wednesday night for the first time this season in the traditional preseason Gamper Trophy, named after the club’s founder, Joan. Roma are this season’s opponents and a crowd of over 80,000 is expected.

A similar number of fans were present when the players last stood on the turf to celebrate last season’s treble winners in Luis Enrique’s first season as coach. They hope to celebrate two more trophies this month as Barca aim to emulate the six won by Pep Guardiola in 2009.

First up will be the two-legged Spanish Super Cup, with the ties to be played home and away on August 14 and 17. Athletic Bilbao, who Barca beat in the Copa del Rey final in May, will provide the opposition, and are also the Spanish champions’ first league opponents, on August 23. Sevilla, the Europa League winners for a second consecutive season last term, will play the Catalans next Tuesday in Tblisi, Georgia, in the European Super Cup final.

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Barca are taking both competitions seriously and Sevilla, who lost to Real Madrid in the 2014 Super Cup, will have to take them on without Aleix Vidal, their Catalan winger who was bought by Barca in the summer. Vidal is the latest in a long line of Sevilla players to have made the move to Camp Nou following Daniel Alves, Seydou Keita and Ivan Rakitic. But because of a Fifa ban, neither Vidal or fellow new signing Arda Turan will be able to play for Barca until January 2016 after the club broke the rules on signing foreign under-aged players.

There will be departures to go with Xavi, the club’s most successful player with more appearances than any other for the club, and Ibrahim Affelay who has moved to Premier League side Stoke City. Gerard Deulofeu, a Catalan striker who spent last season on loan at Sevilla, has also relocated to England, joining Everton, where he spent 2013/14 on loan. Defender Martin Montoya is the only other confirmed departure so far, moving to Inter Milan on a one-year loan.

The most high-profile departure though is likely to be Pedro. The Canarian, who has played in Barca’s preseason games — one win, three successive defeats so far — wants to join Manchester United, and United want him, too. The English club believe the Spanish forward will complete their summer signings of attacking players and Pedro is inclined to move because he is not being given enough minutes and will struggle to dislodge any of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar as part of Barcelona’s glorious front three.

Pedro, who was a European and World Cup winner within two years of breaking into Barca’s first team in 2008, has been patient and, ideally, would like to remain in Barcelona, where he lives with his locally born wife and their son — plus their dog Ronaldo — but he wants to play more.

Pedro is now 28, with over 300 Barca games and 50 appearances for Spain. If his career ended tomorrow then it still would have been a massive success, and while having been involved in 50 games for Barcelona last season sounds impressive, he started in only 15 of 38 league games and just four of the 13 Uefa Champions League matches, a minute of which came in the final against Juventus in Berlin. His 11 goals were well down on his total of 19 the previous season. If he doesn’t play then he can’t score.

Barca have yet to receive an offer from United, but the English club will be expected to pay €30 million (Dh121m), with variables, far less than the €150 million buy out clause included when he signed a new contract two days before the Champions League final in June. If he moves to Manchester, he will earn more money, too.

When Pedro first took to the pitch in celebration as Barcelona won the title, in 2009, he went against the grain of Barca players shouting: “Forever Barca, Forever Catalunya” by hollering “Forever Barca, Forever Tenerife!” Even the most sober Catalans laughed.

They won’t be laughing if he says his goodbyes on Wednesday night, and while neither they nor Enrique want to see him go, they will understand his reasons should he choose to do so.

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