Twenty-nine minutes into Barcelona’s Joan Gamper Trophy night, Alejandro Balde burst down the left, looked up and rolled the ball low across the six-yard box. Hamza Abdelkarim got there first, half a yard ahead of his marker at the near post, and finished. Then he stopped. No arms, no sprint to the corner flag — just a raised palm, a bowed head, and a moment on the turf. The 18-year-old had scored against Al Ahly, the club that raised him.
In one passage of play it was all there: the instinct of a proper No. 9, and the manners of a kid who understands what a badge means to the people who wear it. Mundo Deportivo report it was his fourth goal of pre-season. With Barça still hunting a centre-forward in the closing fortnight of the window, that number is starting to matter a good deal more than his age.
Hamza Abdelkarim: the Barcelona teenager who keeps being the answer
Hansi Flick treated the Gamper as a dress rehearsal for Sunday’s LaLiga opener, and he named it accordingly — only three changes from the side that won 5-2 at Basel. Per Mundo Deportivo, the XI read: Joan García; Koundé, Eric García, Gerard Martín, Balde; Bernal, Espart; Lamine Yamal, Fermín López, Raphinha; Hamza. Note the last name on that list. In front of a Spotify Camp Nou seeing its squad presented for the first time in years, the man leading Barça’s line was an 18-year-old, because the striker the club has spent the summer chasing has not arrived.
He has not exactly been shy about the audition, either. A double against Birmingham in the first serious friendly of the summer, another in the rout at St. Jakob-Park, and now this. Mundo Deportivo’s half-time player ratings marked him certero — clinical — and called it “another pure No. 9’s goal”. Four in a pre-season is a haul a senior forward would take. For a teenager being asked to hold the line for the reigning LaLiga champions, it is something closer to a statement.
The goal, and the gesture
The build-up belonged to the new captain. Raphinha, playing his first match since delivering his speech to the crowd, slid a pass in behind for Balde, and Balde did the rest. Raphinha then won and converted a penalty just before the interval to make it 2-0, before Al Ahly’s Zizo pulled one back six minutes into the second half.
But the image of the night was Hamza’s. He kissed the ground after scoring, then immediately signalled an apology rather than celebrate — a nod to the club where he grew up and where, by Mundo Deportivo’s account, he still has close friends. Barça supporters have watched plenty of players arrive from elsewhere and celebrate wildly against old employers. There is something disarming about a teenager choosing not to.
What it means for Elche
Mundo Deportivo suggest he is now a genuine candidate to start away at Elche on Sunday. That is not the plan the club drew up in June — Barça have been chasing a senior No. 9 all summer, and the pursuit of Julián Álvarez collapsed only this week, sending Deco back through a shortlist with the window closing on 31 August. Nobody at the Ciutat Esportiva is pretending an 18-year-old is the finished solution.
Yet the No. 9 shirt is currently vacant, Robert Lewandowski having left for Chicago Fire this summer, and Hamza — who signed a permanent deal at the club earlier this summer — keeps giving Flick reasons not to look past him. Whoever signs before the end of the month, the German now has a fallback he has actually seen score, repeatedly, against real opposition.
He got his first goal in front of the Camp Nou against the club that made him, and he apologised for it. Barça’s summer is still unfinished, and the striker search rumbles on. But on Wednesday night, the kid wearing the burden of a missing signing looked entirely at home.
