Five days ago Ebrima Tunkara was walking out at the Spotify Camp Nou for the first time, presented to the crowd with the academy group alongside the first-team squad before the Joan Gamper Trophy. On Sunday he was in a friendly at Vilanova, in a Barca Atletic shirt, and he did not finish it. On Monday afternoon the club put a number on it. The Ebrima Tunkara injury is a traumatic ligament problem in his left ankle, and the 16-year-old will be out for roughly six weeks.
The club statement, carried by Barca Universal, reads: "Barça Atlètic player Ebrima Tunkara has a traumatic ligament injury to his left ankle, which occurred during the match against CF Vilanova this Sunday. The approximate time out is six weeks." It is a short medical note with a long shadow: few academy players did more to catch Hansi Flick’s eye this summer.
What the Ebrima Tunkara injury costs him
The first casualty is Spain. Barca Blaugranes report that Tunkara had been due to link up with the Spain Under-18 squad for a friendly tournament, and will now miss it. Mundo Deportivo name the tournament as the one in Alfaz del Pi and say his place goes to another Barca academy player, Michal Zuk of Juvenil A. Barca Universal list the Blaugrana contingent he joins as Jordi Pesquer, Raul Exposito, Sergi Mayans and Roberto Tomas. Mundo Deportivo add that Pesquer, the 17-year-old left-back, did not train under Flick on Monday.
The second is a chunk of Barca Atletic’s season. Mundo Deportivo date Juliano Belletti’s opening run: Naxara at the Estadi Johan Cruyff on 5-6 September, away to Logrones Promesas on 12-13 September, away to Barbastro on 19-20 September, Pena Sport at home on 26-27 September, then a trip to Tudelano on 3-4 October. That is roughly the first five matchdays gone. MD put a possible return against SD Logrones on 10-11 October; Barca Universal, working from Mundo Deportivo’s earlier five-week figure before the club confirmed six, floated Tudelano. Either way, October is the earliest he plays again.
Why this one stings
Tunkara was the pre-season story. He did almost the entire summer with the senior squad, featured in three friendlies, and was one of the academy names Flick was able to watch train at close quarters. Mundo Deportivo, via Barca Universal, report that the German came away very happy with what he saw, and that the plan for 2026-27 was a deliberate hybrid: a leading role under Belletti at Barca Atletic, with the door left open to first-team sessions. He had already dropped back down to the reserves for the start of the campaign, alongside Jesse Bisiwu and Orian Goren, when Barca named their squad for the trip to Elche.
He is also a player Barca have had to work to keep. Mundo Deportivo, via Barca Universal, say several European clubs have approached the teenager and his representatives this summer, and that he remains committed, happy with the development plan the club have laid out for him. Barcelona have invested heavily in that plan precisely because they rate him as one of the academy’s strongest candidates to graduate properly — the same reason another club came calling when Eldense were expected to ask for him on loan.
The wider picture
Six weeks in August is not the worst timing for a 16-year-old, and no source has suggested a longer layoff than the club’s own estimate, which has him back in early October. What he loses is rhythm, and the run of reserve-team football that was supposed to turn a promising pre-season into a case for the first team.
Culers who watched him at the Gamper will simply have to wait a little longer for the next look. The 16-year-old we profiled after Flick tried him at false nine is not going anywhere; he is just going to be doing his growing in the treatment room for a while. When he comes back in October, the audition resumes exactly where he left it.
