Barcelona's Champions League Squad Highlights Key Young Players
Barcelona have locked in their 25-man squad for the Champions League league phase, and the list carries a couple of notable twists beneath the surface of a routine registration.
All 25 players are on first-team contracts, as required by UEFA’s List A rules. Yet two of the names that jump out are still, technically, reserve-team footballers in domestic competition: Egyptian defender Hamza Abdelkarim and Belgian youngster Jesse Bisiu.
Both have been pushed into the European spotlight.
Abdelkarim and Bisiu step up
Abdelkarim and Bisiu keep the shirt numbers they already wear in La Liga – 29 and 27 respectively – but their status changes the moment the Champions League anthem hits. To get them into Europe, Barcelona had to register them on List A as first-team players.
They could not be squeezed into List B. UEFA’s criteria are strict: a player must have spent at least two consecutive years at the club’s academy, or three consecutive years including a loan of no more than one year to another club under the same federation. Abdelkarim and Bisiu do not yet tick those boxes, so the club used up List A slots on them.
It is a clear sign of trust. And a hint at how much the coaching staff expect to lean on them across a long European campaign.
Bardghji’s season wiped out
One name is missing, and for painful reasons. Swedish forward Roony Bardghji has been left out after suffering a serious knee injury that will rule him out for the entire season.
His absence comes at a difficult moment in his Barcelona career. Last season he already found minutes hard to come by, stuck behind the electric Lamine Yamal in the pecking order. Now an injury halts any chance of building rhythm or staking a stronger claim in the side.
For Bardghji, the Champions League will pass by this year as a spectator’s experience.
Fariñas, two numbers and two roles
The paperwork gets even more intriguing with Brian Fariñas.
While Abdelkarim and Bisiu jump straight into List A, Fariñas goes the other way: he features on List B, the club’s academy list, which can be updated up to 24 hours before each match. That means he is available for Champions League duty wearing number 28, grouped with the rest of Barcelona’s academy players.
Domestically, though, he is already embedded in the first-team setup and wears number 4 in La Liga.
Same player, two numbers, two different statuses. It is a neat illustration of how UEFA’s registration rules shape a squad on paper, even when the reality on the pitch feels far more fluid.
Barcelona now head into Europe with a 25-man core, two promoted youngsters, one unlucky absentee, and an academy midfielder straddling both worlds. The question is simple: who among them will turn this paperwork into a breakout Champions League season?
