Roony Bardghji stepped into his first training session as a Barcelona player with a lot to prove.

Barcelona had just signed a player once labelled the Swedish Messi, a promising youngster who broke through to the mainstream with a late Champions League winner for FC Copenhagen against Manchester United in November 2023, a week before his 18th birthday.

His new team-mates knew a bit about who he was and how he had been tipped as a future star. They also knew about his big knee injury.

In May 2024, Bardghji tore an anterior cruciate ligament in training. It meant he featured in just six matches for Copenhagen over the following 2024-25 campaign.

But in a way, that injury led him to Barcelona.

The Spanish club’s sporting director Deco had been monitoring Bardghji for some time, and even held informal meetings with his camp in 2024, but circumstances conspired to create a unique market opportunity last summer. With the player’s contract entering its final six months after a frustrating season spent largely on the sidelines as his knee healed, the Danish champions agreed to a deal with Barca reportedly worth an initial €2.5million (£2.2m/$3m) plus add-ons.

Speaking anonymously to protect their position, like all those consulted for this article, a Barcelona first-team player recalled Bardghji’s first day in training on July 14.

“We did not really know what to expect,” he said. “But I can tell you that everyone left the session saying, ‘This guy is not half bad’.”

Roony Bardghji flip-flap assist 🥵#UCL pic.twitter.com/qgGoVT4r4z

— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) October 23, 2025

Six months later, Bardghji has become an established member of Hansi Flick’s Barcelona side. He has made 17 appearances across four competitions, playing 490 minutes and registering two goals and four assists. In October, he made his first senior appearance for Sweden.

Now 20, he has carved out a role as Lamine Yamal’s backup on the right wing, with Flick choosing him to start in the past three games the Spain forward has been unable to play. He gave a statement performance at the Supercopa de Espana mini-tournament this month, scoring one goal and assisting two in a 5-0 semi-final thrashing of Athletic Club.

Bardghji might not be the fastest — there were doubts he could adapt to the speed of the Premier League, for example, when he was still at Copenhagen — but he does have a burst of pace. His technical ability is easily of the standard required at the Camp Nou, but perhaps most impressive of all has been his decision-making. He’s also adapted well to Flick’s system, knowing the positions he needs to take up and the passes he should look for.

His impact with Barcelona has surprised those who were close to him at Copenhagen. Sources from the Danish club admitted they did not expect him to feature quite as much as he has.

In their defence, back when the transfer was initially done, senior sources at his new club did not rule out the possibility of Bardghji featuring for Barcelona Atletic — their youthful reserve team, currently in Spain’s fourth tier — and his arrival in Catalonia was actually announced by Atletic’s social media accounts. But people close to the player insist second-team football was never an option in their eyes.

If there were doubts at Copenhagen, they were never about his attitude, which was also praised back in Denmark, but related more to how physically ready (or otherwise) Bardghji seemed to be for the challenge of stepping up to elite European level. Barcelona also received multiple approaches, from clubs in La Liga and across Europe, to take Bardghji on loan. But after assessing him in training and on the pre-season tour in Japan and South Korea, Flick was very happy to keep him in the first-team squad.

Time has done its thing over the intervening months and now, on Wednesday, he and Barcelona face his previous club at the Camp Nou in the final round of league-phase action in this season’s Champions League, hoping for the win that should secure direct qualification for the round of 16 in March.

The Bardghji deal reflects one of the key recruitment priorities Deco has brought in: chasing highly-rated young prospects available at good prices.

The first signing he attempted in his role at the Camp Nou was Arda Guler, who in July 2023 left Fenerbahce for Real Madrid instead. A few months later, Deco went after Lucas Bergvall, then at Stockholm club Djudgardens. The Sweden midfielder made a visit to Catalonia at the start of 2024, with the club showing him around the training facilities and explaining their plans for him. But Bergvall ended up joining Tottenham Hotspur that summer for €10million.

Bardghji was a different case. For him, joining Barcelona was a childhood dream.

In an interview with The Athletic in January 2024, he talked about the Lionel Messi posters that hung on his bedroom walls growing up. His Instagram profile has photos of him wearing Barca kits as a kid, and one of his first visit to the Camp Nou with his family, his cheeks painted in club colours.

When the deal for him to join Barcelona was being arranged, he did not even question whether them being in breach of La Liga’s salary rules would affect their capacity to register him to play for them. He and his entourage took Deco’s word for it that he would get the green light.

It turned out Bardghji did miss the first three La Liga games this season because the paperwork was not completed in time. Eventually, just before the deadline on September 1, he was successfully registered with the reserve team, despite being in Flick’s first-team plans. This month, he has finally been officially registered as a first-team player, with his shirt number changing from 28 to 19 (in Spain, clubs must number their senior players from one to 25).

Around the dressing room, Bardghji is seen as a slightly shy but fun character. He is a big fan of the Anime series One Piece, which influences his goal celebrations and Instagram posts. A Christian, religion is also an important part of his life.

An excellent English speaker, he gets along extremely well with Manchester United loanee and England international Marcus Rashford, although he can mix with anyone in the team. After the Supercopa de Espana final win over Real Madrid two weeks ago, he joined Yamal, Alejandro Balde and Marc Casado in celebrating by recording TikTok dances in the dressing room.

When moving out of his family home for the first time last summer — he was born in Kuwait, then raised in Malmo, Sweden — he chose to live in the heart of Barcelona, and he’s often spotted by fans out on the streets.

As for what the future holds, in the short term it might be difficult to see Bardghji getting many more opportunities to show what he can do, with Yamal ahead of him at the same position, but Flick is “very happy” with what he sees.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, the German described Bardghji as “very professional, focused on getting better every day.

“At the moment, it’s not easy, because he has to compete with Lamine, but what I see in training and in games is great,” Flick added. “He made some really good games for us. He is a young player, can play with both feet, and is very good at finishing, as he’s shown this season. He has improved a lot. We made the right decision taking him with the first team.”

Additional reporting: Laia Cervelló Herrero