Barcelona has named its official squad for the UEFA Europa League, a competition the club will be participating in for the first time in over 15 years.
Dani Alves is the new signing to miss out on Barcelona’s Europa League squad after the club confirmed his omission on Wednesday.
The Brazilian, who rejoined the La Liga giants in November, was finally registered for LaLiga duty at the start of January but will not feature for the club in their European campaign having been left out of the named squad.
Alves was joined at the club by fellow new arrivals all from the Premier League Ferran Torres from Manchester City, Adama Traore from Wolverhampton Wanderers and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Arsenal in January, but only three would be permitted to be included in the Europa League squad.
Adama Traore joined Barcelona from Premier League side Wolves and has been included in the UEFA Europa League squad as a new signing. | PHOTO: Getty Images |
UEFA regulations prohibit any more than three new additions to European squads after the January transfer window, and thus Xavi’s side has opted to drop Alves from the European squad.
As such, Barca had more new signings than free spaces, with 38-year-old Alves ultimately the one left out.
Dani Alves has been omitted from the Barcelona Europa League squad. | PHOTO: Getty Images |
Ousmane Dembele, who has had a wavy January has been included, however, despite his contract stand-off seeing tensions rise at the club over the past few weeks with the player thinking the club has stood on his way out.
Barca president Joan Laporta openly suggested the situation might make it “more difficult” for Dembele to feature, though he did leave that up to the discretion of head coach Xavi.
Like Alves, young forwards Ez Abde and Ferran Jutgla were left out of the selection despite breaking into the first-team squad this season – neither were registered with UEFA at the start of the season nor do either qualify as a homegrown Barca player, therefore would have been competing with the new signings for spaces in the squad.
Barca faces Napoli in their Europa League knockout play-off, hosting them on February 17 before going to Naples a week later in a bid to look for silverware this season as the La Liga title is almost gone to their old rivals Real Madrid and having been knocked out of both domestic cups.
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