It’s safe to say that 2024/25 was the worst season in recent memory for Barca Atletic.
After 2 straight seasons of making the Promotion Playoffs to La Liga 2, losing to Real Madrid B in 2023 and Cordoba in 2024, Barca Atletic weren’t best favoured to do much in 24/25. In recent seasons, the side lost many key players, such as Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi, Marc Bernal, Marc Casado, Fermin Lopez, Gerard Martin, and Pau Victor to the first team. It showed. After a dismal 24/25 season, they saw themselves relegated to the Segunda Federacion, the fourth tier of Spanish Football.
Barca Atletic find themselves the victim of their own success. Since the start of 2020-21, Atletic has saw a whopping 24 players get senior team action, such as Cubarsi, Balde, Gavi, and of course, Lamine Yamal. They also lost manager Rafa Marquez, who joined the Mexican national team setup, perhaps upset with not being named Xavi’s successor in 2024. They’ve done their job almost too well, leading to an underperforming band in 24/25. Because of all this, we may see a new era in Barca’s developmental football.
Our story takes us just north, on a 2 and a half hour drive north to Andorra. FC Andorra is a club that, while it’s been around for 83 years, was taken to notability by Gerard Pique’s purchasing of the club in 2019. It spent most of its existence in the fifth tier of Spanish football, but was taken to the Segunda in just 4 years. In 25/26, Andorra is back in the Segunda, and with a friendly face at the helm, Barcelona may see them as a more reasonable option for player development.
Another thing the Barca brass want to do is to streamline the development of the B-Team. Last season, the B-Team had a seemingly record number of players with little to no realistic chance of making it in the senior squad. Players of 21 years or older, seemingly signed for no reason other than to give the actual Barca prospects some competition. No more, says the brass. Barca have announced a whopping 7 players to leave the B-Team with the expiry of their contracts – Pau Prim, Diego Percan, Juan Piera, Aziz Issah, Ruben Lopez, Cedric, and Pedro Soma. Prim is the biggest name, once a major name to watch in the Barca youth ranks, but never got a look in to the first team, with Barca deeming Marc Bernal and Marc Casado better. The 19 year old was snapped up quickly, signing for Al Sadd just 2 days after announcing his departure.
The biggest departure so far has been Noah Darvich, an exciting 18-year old who signed with Barca in 2023 from Freiburg, and in two years was a mainstay with the B-Team, and made some preseason and later season squad appearances with the first team. The midfielder heads back to Germany to join Stuttgart, where he may have a better chance of flourishing. The deal will originally be worth 1 million euros, a loss on the 2.5 million paid by Barca 2 seasons ago, but with addons that could see the deal worth 5 million euros. Barcelona also hold a 20% sell-on clause and right to first refusal with the talent.
Another interesting departure is that of Aleix Garrido, leaving the B-side to join Eibar. The young midfielder seems too good to play in the fourth division but not good enough for the Barca first team, despite making an appearance in 2023 under Xavi against Elche.
Another youth goalkeeper, Ander Astralaga, has left Barca, at least temporarily, this summer. The youngster, who seemingly will be competing with former Madrid talent Luca Zidane for the #1 spot, will join Granada on loan in the second division. The move may increase his experience should Barca need him, either as the backup after Szczesny’s departure, or preparing him for a post-Barca career in the Spanish divisions. Astralaga was fifth in line for Barca, at least at the time of his departure, with Joan Garcia, Szczesny, Ter Stegen, and Inaki Pena ahead of him in Barca’s stacked goalkeeper department.
Alex Valle, a promising fullback, also leaves Barcelona permanently this summer. After being loaned to Como in January, where he found a place in Cesc Fabregas’ setup, he joins the Italian side for 6 million this summer, even though some reports say Barca maintain a buy back clause.
The final high profile departure this summer is Sergi Dominguez, a centerback who was a B-Team mainstay but stepped up for the senior squad near the beginning of the season in the absence of many first team defenders, getting game time in the Champions League vs Monaco and Red Star, in La Liga against Valladolid, Villarreal, and Osasuna, and in the Copa del Rey against Barbastro. He leaves for Dinamo Zagreb, with Barca getting a 1.2 million transfer fee out of him.
Many more departures are expected this summer, with the squad still featuring some 21 year olds and with no reasonable shot of getting promoted, such as Trilli and Mamadou Mbacke. The U19s also have some good young talents, that with the streamlining of the Atletic setup may get some more chances, at last.
However, as always, it’s not just departures that Barca’s scouting department are looking into. They are looking into some of the most interesting links Barca fans have seen in years.
The first link, a transfer that’s 99% complete and basically just needs announcing, is the signing of Copenhagen’s 19 year old star Roony Bardghji. The winger is said to be perfectly “Barca-style”, with great pace and skill, dominating 1v1s. The youngster has been known in youngster spheres for a long time, and even featured in my 2022 best U16s post. While he’d likely feature just for the first team, his signing is still very good nonetheless. With a price tag of just 2 million, it’s daylight robbery for Barca.
Another link that Barca have seen is Recife’s Ze Lucas, a 2008-born defensive midfielder from Brazil who has some classic Barcelona traits. The rumour mill claimed Barca were in advanced talks for the youngster last week, but recent reports have claimed that Barcelona won’t pursue, after the Brazilian club put a 15-million euro price tag on the player, too much for someone Barca deems isn’t necessary with the similar talent coming out of La Masia, with players like Marc Casado and Marc Bernal already in Ze Lucas’ position, as well as first team talent such as Pedri and Frenkie de Jong, and other potential future first team options in future years.
A more realistic transfer for Atletic, with maybe even some first team minutes, is Mikkel Bro Hansen. We covered the player’s profile in a recent post, but didn’t cover the Barca speculation. Despite joining Bodo Glimt mere months ago, Bro Hansen has already been the subject of longtime interest from Deco and co at Barca. He’s been compared to a Haaland-type profile and would likely be cheap to bring in, with his value less than a million euros. If he could be successful at Barca, it would be a major coup, with any longterm Lewandowski replacement options looking like they’d cost well over 65-70 million at least.
The last rumour that’s hit the mainstream so far is Barcelona’s pursuit of Cardoso Varela, a 16-year old Portuguese winger from Dinamo Zagreb. He’d join Barca for around 5 million, a serious sum, but may be subject to scrutiny from Porto, who feel the deal for him to go to Zagreb was unfair. However, we haven’t heard anything about the deal in 3 weeks, which may mean that it isn’t destined to happen, especially because in that time we’ve seen Barcelona spend less than half of that sum on the much more well established Roony Bardghji.
Going into the 25/26 season, Barca Atletic still have some big talents. Toni Fernandez, Guille Fernandez, and potentially even Oscar Gistau may be the face of Barca Atletic’s new era, although the recent meteoric rise of Jan Virgili has turned heads, and he could flourish next season. The appointment of Juliano Belletti, another ex-Barca star, to become Atletic’s manager for 25/26, signals a push to traditional Barca philosophy. It appears Barcelona are looking to take their reserve side more seriously next season, a move which may pay dividends in the long run. I’m Jim James, until next time.