Barcelona’s Roony Bardghji Suffers Second ACL Tear

Barcelona have been hit with grim news – and for Roony Bardghji, it feels even worse than that.

The Spanish champions confirmed on Tuesday that the 20-year-old winger has torn the ACL in his right knee, a serious injury that will require surgery in the coming days and rule him out for months. Any hope of a late-summer move has been wiped out in an instant, with the transfer window closing on September 1.

From transfer talks to treatment room

The timing could hardly be more brutal. Bardghji picked up the injury in training on Monday, just as his camp and the club were preparing for a transfer away from Barcelona. He had already held talks with the management about leaving this summer in search of regular minutes.

Coach Hansi Flick had recently been frank with the Sweden international. According to ESPN, Flick told Bardghji that first-team opportunities would be extremely limited this season, urging him to find a new club where he could play more consistently.

To keep him safe ahead of a likely move, Barcelona had even taken him out of the firing line. Bardghji was left out of the squad for Saturday’s friendlies against Nottingham Forest and Udinese, a precaution to avoid exactly the kind of injury that has now struck anyway.

The club had begun fielding interest from across Europe, including enquiries from Premier League sides, and talks were expected to accelerate as the window ticked towards its final weeks. Then training on Monday changed everything.

A cruel repeat of an old nightmare

This is not Bardghji’s first encounter with this particular nightmare. It is the second time he has torn the ACL in his right knee, having suffered the same injury while at Copenhagen in 2024.

Barcelona signed him from the Danish club last summer in a deal worth around €2 million. His debut season in Spain brought 28 appearances in all competitions and two goals, a modest but promising return for a young winger bedding into one of the world’s most demanding environments.

Most of those minutes came from the bench, and the path to the starting XI was already narrowing. The summer arrivals of Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi threatened to push Bardghji further down the pecking order, sharpening the logic behind a transfer and making the club’s stance clear.

Now that door has slammed shut.

Season written off before it starts

With the window closing on September 1, the severity of the injury effectively kills off any chance of an exit this summer. Bardghji will undergo surgery shortly and then begin a long rehabilitation programme in Barcelona, with the focus shifting from breaking into a new team to simply getting back on the pitch.

Instead of using this season to relaunch his career elsewhere, the 20-year-old will spend it fighting his way back from a second major knee injury. For a player who thought he was on the verge of a fresh start, the battle has suddenly changed – not about where he plays next, but how strongly he can come back.