Barcelona youngster ruled out of pre-season friendly vs Vissel Kobe – report | OneFootball

FC Barcelona arrived in Japan in the early morning hours of Saturday, following some chaos surrounding their travel plans due to problems between the club and the match promoters.

Having arrived in Kobe, the Blaugrana players trained ahead of tomorrow’s friendly match against Vissel Kobe – their first of the tour before they travel to South Korea.

No Marc Bernal

Barcelona manager Hansi Flick has taken a squad of 30 players on the trip to Asia for the pre-season friendlies.

However, of those 30, young midfielder Marc Bernal will not be available for Sunday’s match against Vissel Kobe, reports RAC1.

Bernal will miss Vissel Kobe match. (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

The 18-year-old starlet has only recently worked his way back to fitness after spending almost a year out due to an ACL injury.

As such, he is deemed to be still not fully fit and ready to return for the game against Vissel Kobe tomorrow, with Barcelona planning to ease him back into action and not take any risks with him.

Bernal was one of the revelations of the pre-season last summer for Barcelona, on the back of which he became a starter for Hansi Flick in the first three games of the 2024/25 season before getting injured.

The La Masia prodigy will hope to recover that level again and work his way back into the starting lineup, although competition will be stiff with Pedri, Frenkie de Jong, Gavi, and Marc Casado all vying for a berth.