Roony Bardghji's season is over before it began. Barcelona's 20-year-old Swedish winger has torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee during a pre-season training session, ONE reports, with the club bracing for him to miss around half a year of action — the second time in his young career that the same injury has stopped him cold.
The injury happened on Monday at Barça's Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, the club's training complex in Sant Joan Despí. Bardghji went down in evident distress during a routine drill and had to be helped from the pitch; he did not travel with the squad for their pre-season friendly in Udine that followed, and scans confirmed the club's worst fears.
ONE reports the recovery period is expected to run to roughly six months, a timeline echoed elsewhere by transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano, who put the layoff at six to seven months following surgery. Either way, Bardghji is now expected to miss the majority of Barcelona's 2026-27 campaign.
It is a brutal case of déjà vu. ONE notes the tear is in the same knee that sidelined Bardghji roughly two years ago, when he suffered his first cruciate ligament rupture while still at FC Copenhagen — an injury that kept him out for the best part of a year before he fought his way back to full fitness.
The timing compounds the frustration. Bardghji had been in advanced talks over a loan move away from Camp Nou this summer, seeking the regular first-team football that has been hard to come by behind Barcelona's senior wingers; those plans are now off the table entirely, with reports in the English press linking him to Premier League interest from clubs including Leeds, Everton and Brighton before the injury struck.
Barcelona signed Bardghji from Copenhagen in 2025 on a contract running to 2029, and he made his debut for the club on 14 September that year in a 6-0 win over Valencia. The move capped a rapid rise for a player who first drew wider attention in November 2023, aged just 17, when he scored an 87th-minute winner for Copenhagen against Manchester United in the Champions League.
Born in Kuwait to a Syrian family before moving to Sweden as a child, Bardghji has also become a fixture of the Sweden youth setup, having represented the under-17s and under-21s on his way toward the senior national team. His combination of pace, close control and end product had marked him out as one of Barcelona's most exciting academy graduates of recent years.
For now, the focus shifts to the operating table and a long rehabilitation. Having already proven he can come back from an ACL tear once, Bardghji's recovery will be watched closely at Camp Nou — but the timeline means his season, and likely any loan move to gain playing time, has effectively been wiped out before a ball has been kicked in earnest.
