Barça does pending homework with Gerard Martín and Marc Bernal

BarcelonaBarça will begin their league title defense on August 23rd at Elche's ground. It will be one month and five days after the World Cup final in which a large part of the the backbone of the Barça team was crowned champion.This means that Lamine Yamal, Pedri, Dani Olmo, Pau Cubarsí and company will hardly be able to compete at their best. They would risk suffering injuries just by resuming sporting activity after the success achieved with the Spanish national team. In place of these essential players, Hansi Flick will have to rely at the start of the season on footballers who will have completed a full preseason. Among them, two prominent names stand out: Marc Bernal and Gerard Martín, two young talents who the Barcelona club has had to re-register with the League.

It hadn't been long since both the Berga midfielder and the Barcelona defender were able to compete with the first team last season thanks to the fine print of the regulations of the fair play financier of the Spanish employers' association. Last summer, with Barça outside the 1:1 rule, it was necessary to go into detail again to not leave any footballer unregistered. The case of Gerard Martín was quite uncomfortable, as due to his age he could not be considered a reserve player and had to wait until matchday 3 of the championship to be included in Flick's squad lists. As the sporting management prioritized the registrations of Joan Garcia and Marcus Rashford, the defender could not debut until Iñaki Peña was loaned out to Elche. The termination of Oriol Romeu's contract also served as a boost for Barça to accommodate Martín, who had renewed at the beginning of 2025 until 2028. Of course, there was only room for one season. The remaining two had to be resolved this summer. And that's what has been done.

The hidden secrets of the fair play financial regulations also allowed Bernal to be put on the payroll at the last minute on the final day of the summer transfer window last season. Although in his case the club could keep him with a reserve team number, the loan of Héctor Fort was used for him to join as a first-team player. Like Gerard Martín, however, he only received permission for one season. Eleven months later, the provisional status has passed and Bernal, who has a contract until June 30, 2029 and a great deal of potential, can now breathe easy. Flick will also do so, who with Pedri, Olmo and Gavi on vacation and Frenkie de Jong with a knee injury, has a lot of faith in the repertoire of a midfielder who will start the season as a starter after a few months on an upward trend once he overcame the ligament tear he suffered in August 2024.

Adeyemi and Gordon, pending registration

In the last few hours, Barça has also registered two more youngsters with La Liga who did not appear on the employers' association's official website at the beginning of the week. These are Roony Bardghji, registered with a reserve team number last summer, and Héctor Fort, who played on loan at Elche and is now back under Barcelona's discipline. Unlike Gerard Martín and Bernal, both the Swedish winger and the Catalan full-back are among those rumored to leave the club before the market closes. Bardghji was a sports management gamble that hasn't quite worked out, and this year he will again have a very difficult time participating: he will have Lamine Yamal, Raphinha, Karim Adeyemi, Anthony Gordon, and (if he doesn't leave) Ferran Torres ahead of him. As for Fort, only an unexpected full-back departure could see him stay in the squad.

At this point in the summer, Barça has not yet registered the new contracts of Wojciech Szczęsny and Andreas Christensen and is also pending sending all the paperwork to the employers' association to register what are currently the only two signings of this market, the aforementioned Adeyemi and Gordon. Likewise, João Cancelo, who they want to recruit permanently after a very opportune loan in the middle of last season, should be registered. The 1:1 rule will help meet all needs, but it will not mean a free pass. First, space will need to be made with more departures besides that of Robert Lewandowski.