Season over for Pedrola: femoral biceps injury, Bologna in doubt

Estanislau Pedrola Fortuny, known to all as Pedrola, is certainly not a case of 'nomen omen'. The 2003 Spanish player born in Cambrils (in the heart of Catalonia) has nothing lucky about him, at least in terms of his physical integrity. His training stoppage in the last few days since yesterday has the contours of a diagnosis that is also a sentence: left biceps femoris injury, recovery times set between 3 and 4 weeks. In the cold lexicon of football it means two little words: season over.

It makes you wonder if, at least the one in red and blue, for Pedrola has ever started. Arrived at the last minute in the January market from Sampdoria with the formula of loan with right of redemption, Pedrola has only set foot on the pitch on two occasions and in both cases in the final moments: against Venezia, in the league, on March 29, and against Empoli, in the return leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final, on April 24. Thirteen minutes in the league plus 20 in the Coppa Italia. The total is 33 and this too seems like a mockery for a boy who every time the doctor on duty has pronounced the fateful 'say thirty-three' has paid on the pitch for a physical fragility that at twenty-one years of age is worrying. It is also the only reason why Pedrola has only grazed the big stages so far and why the Barcelona, where he gained experience, retains a potential buy-back right with which he could 'buy him back' from Sampdoria.

Thirty-three minutes on the pitch are few but they were enough to offer a sample of the enormous technical qualities of a boy who skips defenders like skittles and who is a joy to behold in a football increasingly dominated by schemes. But no: the season is over and the rossoblù adventure is over, because it is difficult that Estanislau Fortuny, who bears the same name as his Catalan partisan great-grandfather killed in 1944 by the Nazis in the Flossenburg concentration camp, can whet the appetite of the Bologna to exercise the right of redemption. Very strong, but fragile like a Swarovski. Too bad.

Massimo vitali