Iraola Excludes Chiesa and Endo from Liverpool's Champions League Squad
Andoni Iraola has wasted no time showing where the lines are drawn at Liverpool. Two big names, Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo, are out of his 2026-27 Champions League squad before a ball has even been kicked in Europe.
Liverpool submitted their 25-man List A ahead of their opener against Atletico Madrid on September 9. When the names were checked, the omissions were brutal but clear: no Chiesa, no Endo.
This wasn’t a whim. It was a calculation.
UEFA rules bite – and Chiesa, Endo pay the price
UEFA’s registration rules allow a maximum of 17 non-locally trained players on List A. Those slots are gold dust. Iraola chose to spend them elsewhere.
£123 million signing Bradley Barcola is in. So is fellow summer arrival Victor Munoz. Even Hugo Ekitike, currently injured, has been handed a place. Chiesa and Endo, both full internationals, have been squeezed out.
The message from the new manager is unmistakable: he is building his own core, and sentiment has no seat at the table.
Carragher: “They’re never going to kick a ball”
Jamie Carragher did not sugarcoat it. Speaking on The Overlap, the former Liverpool defender delivered a cold verdict on the pair’s status under Iraola.
“Liverpool have got two players in the squad who are never going to play,” he said. “And there are all these quotas, you can only have 17 players and all that. They have got Chiesa and Endo. It’s like they are never going to kick a ball.”
The Sky Sports pundit then turned the spotlight on the club’s decision to keep Endo this summer.
“Endo should have been moved on,” he added. “He has done great, a bit of a cult hero.”
Cult favourite or not, the numbers back up Carragher’s concern. Endo’s role shrank dramatically last season: just eight Premier League appearances and a single Champions League outing. For a senior international midfielder, that is the profile of a squad filler, not a cornerstone.
Chiesa’s stalled Anfield story
Chiesa’s Liverpool career has never really taken off. Every time a runway appears, his body betrays him.
The 28-year-old is again sidelined with a muscle problem. The current injury is not thought to be long-term, but the decision to leave him out of the Champions League squad speaks louder than any medical bulletin.
Iraola has chosen to register long-term absentees like Conor Bradley and Giovanni Leoni ahead of a player edging back towards fitness. That choice underlines where Chiesa now sits in the pecking order: on the outside, looking in.
For a winger once tipped to light up Anfield, it is a stark comedown.
Domestic scraps while Europe moves on
Liverpool’s immediate focus is split. Ipswich Town visit Anfield on Friday in the league, a domestic hurdle to clear before the European curtain rises.
Then comes Atletico Madrid under the lights, the start of a demanding league-phase campaign that also sends Iraola’s side to Inter and Fenerbahce. It is a schedule that demands depth, resilience, and clarity of roles.
Chiesa and Endo, though, will watch that journey from the margins. Their realistic opportunities now sit in the domestic cups, waiting for early-round rotations or the kind of injury crisis that can force a mid-season reshuffle of the European squad.
Until then, two experienced internationals remain stuck in limbo, their contracts running to 2027 and 2028 but their Champions League ambitions parked. Under a manager who has already shown he is willing to make hard calls, the real question is whether this is a pause in their Liverpool story – or the beginning of the end.
