Barcelona’s Roony Bardghji Faces Second ACL Tear

Barcelona’s plans for Roony Bardghji – and the winger’s own career trajectory – have been ripped up in a single training session.

The club confirmed on Tuesday that the 20-year-old Sweden international has torn the ACL in his right knee, a devastating repeat of the same serious injury he suffered in 2024 while at Copenhagen. He will undergo surgery in the coming days and faces months on the sidelines.

A move that was gathering pace is now gone. Completely.

From transfer talks to operating table

The injury struck on Monday during training, just as Bardghji was preparing for a late-summer exit. After talks with club management and a blunt assessment from coach Hansi Flick, the message had been clear: first-team minutes at Barcelona this season would be scarce.

According to ESPN, Flick told Bardghji that breaking into the starting XI would be extremely difficult in the upcoming campaign. The club, aware of that reality, had already begun listening to offers. Interest had arrived from across Europe, including the Premier League, with negotiations expected to accelerate as the September 1 transfer deadline approached.

Barcelona even tried to shield him.

To reduce the risk of injury before a transfer, Bardghji was deliberately left out of the squad for Saturday’s friendlies against Nottingham Forest and Udinese. He didn’t kick a ball in those games. Then came Monday’s session, and with it the worst possible outcome: a torn ACL, the very scenario everyone had tried to avoid.

A cruel repeat for a 20-year-old

This is not Bardghji’s first battle with this injury. He tore the ACL in the same right knee in 2024 while playing for Copenhagen, an ordeal that already threatened to stall his rapid rise.

Barcelona signed him last summer for around €2 million, a low-risk, high-upside deal that looked smart as he settled into Spanish football. Bardghji made 28 appearances in all competitions in his debut season, scoring twice. Most of those minutes came from the bench, but at 20, there was time and room to grow.

That room shrank sharply this summer. The arrivals of Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi added heavyweight competition in the forward line, squeezing Bardghji’s path to regular action even further and making a transfer the logical next step in his development.

Now that path has been blocked by the one thing every player fears most.

Window shut, season rewritten

With the transfer window closing on September 1, the timing leaves no margin. Barcelona’s confirmation of a severe ACL tear effectively rules out any move this summer. No club will gamble on a player heading straight into surgery and a long rehabilitation.

Instead of relocating, Bardghji will now remain in Barcelona, beginning another gruelling recovery programme. The coming campaign, which he had hoped to spend restarting his career at a new club, will be dedicated to rebuilding his knee and his confidence.

For Barcelona, it is an unwelcome twist in their squad planning. For Bardghji, it is something harsher: a second major knee injury before his 21st birthday, just when the door to a fresh start seemed to be opening.