![\"Lamine](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2264050987.jpg\")
Getty Images<\/p>\nFor years, Alberto Moleiro (22) has been dubbed the ‘new Pedri’ in Spain. Though he is proud of the nickname, he desperately wants to make a name for himself. This season, only Lamine Yamal has scored more LaLiga goals among players aged 24 or under.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ronald Koeman stands contentedly in front of his dugout as FC Barcelona enjoy a comfortable evening against Villarreal. After 45 minutes, a brace from Ansu Fati and (obviously) a Lionel Messi strike have put the Catalans 4-0 ahead. In the second half, he glances at some of his reserves warming up.<\/p>\n
Among them is a frail 17-year-old lad: Pedri. Koeman signals to him: time for his debut. Afterwards, the youngster quietly but convincingly makes his way into the starting line-up. It came as no surprise to Koeman. “Barcelona initially wanted to loan him out, but after just two training sessions I really felt: he’s brilliant!”, Koeman recently told ESPN.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Messi was there, of course, and he played the ball straight to him. If Messi played with someone he didn’t rate, he’d skip him. But he sought out Pedri; there was an instant connection.” Being compared to Pedri is no small feat, that much is clear. “Since I broke through in professional football, I’ve been compared to him quite often,” Moleiro told EFE.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m not sure if it’s because we look alike \u2014 \u00a0because we do share some resemblance \u2014 but I’m proud to be compared to Pedri.” The similarities are indeed striking: both rock an undercut hairstyle and stand at roughly the same height. More importantly, both grew up in Tenerife and were scouted by UD Las Palmas as youth players.<\/p>\n
They were moulded into top talents at clubs renowned La Casa Amarilla academy. Pedri is only ten months older than Moleiro, however they never featured together in Las Palmas’ first team: Barcelona had already signed Pedri by the time Moleiro broke through.<\/p>\n
Both made their debuts at just sixteen, earning their first professional minutes under manager Pepe Mel. “At that age, they already had enormous potential,” Mel recalls in an interview with Mundo Deportivo. “That was immediately clear to us; they understood the game very well.”<\/p>\n
La Casa Amarilla shares certain similarities in its approach with Barcelona’s La Masia academy. “Our culture starts with playing on the streets, which fosters the ball control that players from the Canary Islands all possess,” says Manuel Rodr\u00edguez, head of youth development at Las Palmas. David Silva and Pedro are other compelling examples of his reasoning.<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
The two highest-scoring teenagers of this LaLiga season, captured in a single image.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Pedri’s success, Barcelona wanted to bring Moleiro to Camp Nou too. Unfortunately, due to the club’s precarious financial situation, the move collapsed. “On the pitch, me and Pedri, we’re very different,” Moleiro says. “We both have our own playing styles. I’ll have to make a name for myself, although the comparison is pretty great. He’s a world-class player.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
While both dribblers are technically excellent, Pedri is the pure playmaker \u2014 the Bar\u00e7a metronome who touches the ball at least four times in every build-up. Moleiro is more direct, more frequently drifts into the final third, and crashes into the box more often. Under Villarreal coach Marcelino, he slots in on the left of the 4-4-2 midfield.<\/p>\n
Marcelino is delighted with the man Villarreal signed last summer for over \u20ac15 million, a move that fended off competition from Napoli and Chelsea, both of whom had scouted the playmaker extensively.<\/p>\n
“It turned out to be the best \u20ac16 million Villarreal has ever spent,” Spanish newspaper SPORT wrote during Moleiro’s first season at La Cer\u00e1mica. The praise was well earned, even if he did take some time to settle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It was difficult at first, because it’s also the first time I’ve been away from home,” Moleiro explains. By the halfway point of the season, that feeling vanished. By then, Moleiro had already racked up eight goals and three assists. “Now I feel very much at ease with my teammates and the squad.”<\/p>\n
Last weekend, Moleiro played a key role as Villarreal sealed a spot in next season’s Champions League by beating Levante. The left-sided midfielder demonstrated his class when he used a body feint effectively to cut inside and get the ball on his right foot 20 metres out. Moleiro fired in a surprise yet perfectly placed shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That effort restored Villarreal’s lead in the 70th minute, and Marcelino’s side went on to turn a 2-1 advantage into a convincing 5-1 win during the final quarter of the game. That strike took Moleiro’s LaLiga tally to ten, more than any other LaLiga-midfielder this season. Only wonderkid Lamine Yamal has bettered that figure among players under 24.<\/p>\n
His standout campaign has not gone unnoticed: “The Spanish national team is closely monitoring his performances and plans to call him up soon,” MARCA reported. “Luis de la Fuente values his qualities and believes that, with the right guidance, he can become a key player for the national team of the future. One thing is most certain: the ‘new Pedri’ is doing everything he can to make a name for himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, Alberto Moleiro (22) has been dubbed the ‘new Pedri’ in Spain. Though he is proud of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9418,92,418,9419,9417,664,1147],"class_list":{"0":"post-16632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-a-moleiro","9":"tag-barcelona","10":"tag-features","11":"tag-hidden-gems-fc","12":"tag-las-palmas","13":"tag-pedri","14":"tag-villarreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}