Barcelona's Striker Search: Hamza Abdelkarim Emerges as a Wildcard
Barcelona edge closer to signing Joao Cancelo and Rodri. The squad is taking shape. The problem? The No. 9 shirt still feels empty.
The chase for a marquee striker has stalled. Julian Alvarez remains out of reach, with Atletico Madrid showing no real desire to lose one of their key attackers. Barcelona have scanned the market, weighed up options like Viktor Gyokeres, and crunched the numbers.
And then they looked inside their own house.
Hamza Abdelkarim, the wildcard
Hamza Abdelkarim arrived as a trialist, not a headline act. But his first training sessions changed the tone around him almost immediately.
From day one, the young Egyptian caught the eye of the coaching staff. Not with tricks or showboating, but with the one thing Barcelona desperately need: goalscoring instinct.
During a specific finishing session set up to test him, Hamza went to work. He bent shots into the far corner, snapped onto loose balls at the near post, and treated every chance like it mattered. The technical team watched closely and kept seeing the same pattern – this was a player who naturally attacked the goal, not just the ball.
Then came the header that made everyone stop. Early in the session, he rose, met the cross, and powered it in with a mix of timing and aggression that stunned those on the pitch and on the sidelines. It wasn’t just the force of the header, but the way he attacked the space. Raw, direct, ruthless. The kind of tools you can’t teach easily.
Barcelona saw potential. Real, tangible potential.
Rewiring a striker’s instincts
Potential alone isn’t enough at this level. The staff also spotted a habit they wanted to correct.
At the beginning of his trial, Hamza had noticed how Barcelona’s forwards often drop into midfield to link play. Eager to fit in, he copied that movement, coming away from the penalty area to receive the ball and join the build-up.
It looked good in flashes, but it wasn’t what they needed from him.
Pol Planas and his staff stepped in. They pulled him back towards the box, both literally and tactically. The message was clear: leave the penalty area only when the play truly demands it. Don’t drift for the sake of it. Live where defenders hate you most.
To sharpen that movement, the staff turned to video. Clips of Erling Haaland, Viktor Gyokeres and Barcelona legend Samuel Eto’o became his reference points. Three different profiles, one shared trait – an obsession with staying in dangerous zones.
The idea is simple and ruthless: keep Hamza as close to the penalty area as possible. Make him the final touch, not the extra pass. Let others knit the play; his job is to finish it.
It’s the same line Hansi Flick is following with him. Flick wants his striker living on the shoulder of the last defender, ready to explode into space or attack a cross, not drifting into pockets where others already operate.
A plan B taking shape
All of this work hints at something bigger. Barcelona are still pushing for a big-name striker before the window closes, but reality can bite hard in the transfer market. Fees, resistance from selling clubs, timing – it all adds up.
So the club are quietly building a contingency.
Hamza Abdelkarim is not the superstar name that fills shirts in the club shop. Not yet. But inside the training ground, he is being shaped, drilled and refined as a pure No. 9, with a very specific role in mind.
If the marquee signing doesn’t arrive, Barcelona may not be as desperate as it seems from the outside. They might already have a different kind of solution waiting in the box.
