Hamza Abdelkarim has not played a single competitive minute this season, and Barcelona could not be happier about it.
Two La Liga matchdays, two places in the squad, two afternoons on the bench and, according to reporting from SPORT, absolutely no panic inside the club about any of it.
The 18-year-old Egyptian is following a plan, and that plan is the reason Barcelona let a €25 million centre-forward walk to the Santiago Bernábeu without lifting a finger.
With the summer window closing on 31 August, the Blaugrana have spent weeks being linked with almost every available No. 9 in Europe.
What has been less visible is the quieter internal argument that has shaped all of it: Barcelona already think they have a striker of the future on the payroll, and they are not willing to spend heavily on a body who would sit in front of him.
Why Barcelona turned down Carlos Espi
According to SPORT, relayed by Barça Universal, Carlos Espi was offered to Barcelona this summer before he completed a move to Real Madrid. The Catalans looked, liked what they saw, and said no — because saying yes meant triggering a €25 million release clause for a player who would not have started.
Journalist Sique Rodríguez explained the thinking bluntly. “Carlos Espi was offered to Barça, who consider him a good player,” he said. “They rejected it, among other reasons, because they were not willing to pay 25 million euros for someone who was not going to be a starter.”
That is not a scouting verdict so much as a budgeting one. Barcelona have already committed serious money in attack this summer — roughly €70 million on Anthony Gordon from Newcastle and around €22 million on Karim Adeyemi from Borussia Dortmund — on top of a €60 million midfield rebuild around Rodri. Adding a €25 million fourth-choice forward to that list was never going to survive contact with the club’s wage structure.
Real Madrid took the opposite view and signed Espi as cover following Gonzalo García’s departure. Barcelona, meanwhile, kept the money and kept faith in a teenager who was already outscoring everybody in pre-season.
Hamza Abdelkarim and the summer that changed the plan
Abdelkarim finished the summer as Barcelona’s leading scorer in pre-season, a run that included his goal against Al Ahly at the Joan Gamper Trophy. That is the sort of statistic that can flatter a youngster in July and be quietly forgotten by September. This time it has not been.
Hansi Flick rates him. The German has kept him around the first-team squad for both league fixtures — the 5-0 win at Elche and Thursday’s 2-0 defeat of Athletic Club at the Spotify Camp Nou — without using him, which tells you the staff want him in the environment even when they do not need him on the pitch.
Part of what has shifted is physical. Per the SPORT report carried by Barça Universal, Abdelkarim has made a visible physical leap over recent months on a specific strength and conditioning programme, with development in both his upper and lower body. He was already a classical No. 9 with an imposing frame; he is now closer to being able to survive against elite centre-backs every week.
The other accelerator was international football. Abdelkarim went to the World Cup with the senior Egypt squad this summer, and the club believe that experience compressed a season’s worth of competitive development into a few weeks. Flick, by the same account, came back from the break looking at a player far closer to elite football. Barcelona still stress that there are stages of his development left to complete — which is exactly where the roadmap comes in.
The roadmap: No. 29, a reserve licence and a new contract
Rather than promote him and hope, Barcelona have built a structure around Abdelkarim. Three elements matter.
He keeps the No. 29 shirt and his reserve-team registration. The intention from the start of the season, per the report, was for the forward to stay registered with Barça Atlètic so he can drop down and play whenever the first team does not need him. That is the difference between a teenager developing and a teenager decorating a bench.
He has somewhere to play. Barcelona expect stretches of the campaign where Flick simply cannot give him minutes — the Champions League league phase begins in September and the fixture list tightens fast. Under Juliano Belletti at Barça Atlètic, he can keep his match rhythm rather than losing months to the bench.
He is being paid like a prospect who matters. The club are working on a new deal. The contract Abdelkarim signed on joining the youth setup is now out of date relative to his standing, and the renewal is expected to bring improved terms and, crucially for Barcelona, a significantly higher release clause. La Masia’s recent history is full of cautionary tales about clauses left too low for too long; the club are not repeating that with a striker they rate this highly.
What it means for Barcelona’s No. 9 problem right now
None of this solves the immediate question. Robert Lewandowski left on a free transfer for Chicago Fire this summer and Ferran Torres was sold to Paris Saint-Germain for €48.5 million, which stripped two recognised centre-forwards out of the squad in one window. What Flick has done in response is refuse to force it.
Against Athletic, Raphinha played through the middle as a false nine and scored, with Fermín López adding the second — the kind of afternoon that makes the vacancy look theoretical rather than urgent. As Mundo Deportivo noted, Barcelona’s captain and Fermín are currently sharing the role of the team’s leading scorers, which is not a sentence anyone was writing in July. Gordon has also been used centrally, and the England forward’s adaptation to the position has bought Flick further room.
Behind that, the recruitment picture is unchanged. Julián Álvarez remains the preferred target and the saga at Atlético Madrid continues to run down to the wire, with Lautaro Martínez and Viktor Gyökeres reported as alternatives that have never really progressed. If nothing lands before Monday, Barcelona’s striker plans shift to January — and Abdelkarim becomes considerably more than a squad-list curiosity.
The bigger point
There is a version of this story that reads as a club talking itself into a cheap solution. That is not quite fair. Barcelona’s decision on Espi was made with a specific alternative in mind, and they have backed it with the three things that actually signal belief: a registration that guarantees football, a contract that reflects status, and a clause that protects the asset.
Abdelkarim is 18. He may not score a competitive goal for the first team this season, and the roadmap explicitly allows for that. But if Barcelona reach the end of August without a new No. 9, the teenager who topped their pre-season scoring charts will be the closest thing they have to one — and the club, by their own planning, will not be improvising.
