Welcome to Inside Barcelona, our weekly series to follow La Liga’s defending champions throughout their 2025-26 season.

Every edition will bring you our latest information and analysis on the biggest talking points, cutting through the noisy world of all things Barca with reporting you can trust.

This week, Laia Cervello Herrero and Pol Ballus discuss how the club are feeling about their La Liga game against Villarreal being moved to Miami and whether Dani Olmo, Lamine Yamal and others will be fit for El Clasico later this month.

Meanwhile, Matt Slater explores what an appearance by president Joan Laporta in Rome says about Barca’s changing relationship with UEFA and the European Super League…

What’s the biggest talking point at Barcelona this week?

On the pitch, the main concern before the international break was Barcelona’s poor form and whether their players would succumb to what local media call the ‘FIFA virus’ — players being injured while away with their countries.

Lamine Yamal is still nursing a groin injury he picked up during the last break in September. This time, Olmo and Ferran Torres withdrew from the Spain squad with issues.

First, the Spanish football federation (RFEF) announced Olmo would miss their two World Cup qualifiers against Georgia (on Saturday, which Spain won 2-0) and against Bulgaria tomorrow (Tuesday) due to muscle fatigue he had been suffering since being called up. He underwent tests and was diagnosed with a calf injury, which was reported to the club’s medical services.

Olmo is now a major doubt for El Clasico against Real Madrid on October 26 with club sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, indicating on Monday that he is expected to be sidelined for two-three weeks.

Olmo is a serious doubt for El Clasico (Maria Gracia Jimenez/Soccrates/Getty Images)

Torres’ case is less worrying. After playing the full 90 minutes against Georgia, he was withdrawn from the squad as a precaution. The RFEF reported he was suffering from a muscle strain without any further injury and that he would return to Barcelona and Barca confirmed it was just a left hamstring strain.

Those are far from the only players on Barca’s injury list: Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Raphinha, goalkeeper Joan Garcia and Gavi and Marc-Andre ter Stegen (both long-term injuries) are all sidelined at present. Fermin is expected to be fit for the Saturday’s game against Girona, as he has been training with the team since last week. There is no timeframe on Yamal’s return but he trained with his team-mates on Monday, too.

How do Barca feel about their away game against Villarreal being moved to Miami?

The club see their December game against Villarreal being moved to Miami — which was effectively approved by UEFA last week — as a great opportunity. They have been wanting to expand into the North American market for some time, as evidenced by their collaboration with Nike’s Kobe Bryant arm for their third kit and their pre-season tours to the United States.

The financial problems they face mean those at the club’s highest levels are delighted with the opportunity to generate further income.

But player sentiment is another thing. Frenkie de Jong, one of the team’s captains pictured above, spoke out about the plans in a press conference he gave while on international duty with the Netherlands.

“I can understand the clubs financially, they will of course profit from it, and they can spread their brand further across the world. But I wouldn’t do it,” he said.

“It’s not good for the players. You have to travel a lot. It’s also not fair in terms of competition. For us, it’s now an away match on neutral ground. I totally understand if other clubs aren’t happy about that.”

President Joan Laporta responded at an event later that day in Barcelona, saying, “The club will play wherever La Liga tells them to.”

Club sources — who, like all those cited in this article, asked to remain anonymous to speak freely — told The Athletic they were not pleased with De Jong’s comments and argued they went against the club’s interests. Those voices said the Dutch midfielder had been informed of this.

In August, Barca captain Ter Stegen was one of the players who signed a statement by the Spanish footballers’ association the AFE against staging a La Liga match overseas.

What is going on with Barca and UEFA/the European Super League?

In the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday, Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn toured the Eternal City by Vespa, with memorable stops at the Colosseum and Mouth of Truth.

Last week, in the 2025 remake, Laporta and Paris Saint-Germain boss Nasser Al-Khelaifi enjoyed a “romantic walk” through Rome, posed for pictures on e-scooters and enjoyed a gala dinner at the Baths of Caracalla.

The original ends with us not knowing if the protagonists will live happily ever after, and in the new version… well, we are not sure yet.

What we do know is that Laporta was the star guest at the biggest gathering European Football Clubs has ever held, a two-day affair that featured fireworks, Italian rock stars, a drone show, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a live recording of The Overlap, FIFA president Gianni Infantino and hundreds of club executives.

A cynic might say it was the biggest because it was the first gathering of European Football Clubs but that is only because this was its first under its new name and logo — it was the plain old European Club Association when Laporta and his 11 fellow European Super League conspirators quit in April 2021.

Ten of those have already returned to the UEFA-affiliated body, leaving just Barcelona and Real Madrid in self-declared exile. And now Barcelona appear to be back.

Al-Khelaifi, who took over as ECA president when the ESL gang left, greeted Laporta like his best friend from school when the small Barca delegation arrived at the Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria on Wednesday. A week before, they had also happily posed in front of the cameras as they entered Barcelona’s renowned Via Veneto restaurant for lunch before the Catalans faced PSG in the Champions League.

Laporta with UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and Al-Khelaifi at Barca’s Champions League game against PSG (Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

They travelled together to Wednesday evening’s dinner at the baths only for their journey to be halted by a pro-Palestinian demonstration. That forced them to embark on what Al-Khelaifi jokingly called their “romantic walk”. On the way, a photographer snapped them pretending to jump on Rome’s rent-a-scooters.

On Thursday, at the general assembly itself, Al-Khelaifi opened his speech by calling Laporta their “special guest”, praising him for his turnaround job at Barca and saying “friends can disagree but they always come back together for the greater job”. Laporta was not actually in the room to hear this but the point had already been made.

When asked later by reporters if this week’s reconciliation meant the European Super League was now dead, Al-Khelaifi said it died a long time ago and “we don’t need any other competition, we have the best club competition already and it is even better with its new format”. Laporta was back home on Thursday, talking to reporters about “building bridges between the Super League and UEFA” — so his Roman holiday had clearly been a constructive trip.

Will Real Madrid finally admit the fight is over? Al-Khelaifi did not answer directly but made it clear the door was wide open and he would be willing to take Florentino Perez for a romantic walk, too, if that is what it takes.

How have Barca’s players performed on international duty?

De Jong’s Netherlands side are on the verge of qualifying for next year’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada and Mexico after he helped them thrash Finland 4-0 in Amsterdam following a 4-0 win against Malta.

Andreas Christensen has come out of the break stronger after playing all 90 minutes in Denmark’s two qualifiers against Belarus and Greece. He played as a right-back in their 3-1 win against Greece, showing a more attacking side to his game. Against Belarus, he assisted Victor Froholdt for Denmark’s opener in the 6-0 victory.

Robert Lewandowski played the full 90 minutes against Lithuania and rediscovered his scoring touch with Poland, netting their second in the 2-0 win after not featuring in a 1-0 friendly win against New Zealand.

Elsewhere, Roony Bardghji made his senior debut for Sweden, taking advantage of the playing time he has been given with Barca. He came on in the 85th minute of their qualifier against Switzerland, but Sweden lost 2-0 and their participation at the World Cup now looks to be in doubt.

As for Spain, Pau Cubarsi started against Georgia while Pedri was one of their most influential players, as usual. He produced the most key passes (five) for Spain and was involved in the build-up to Yeremy Pino’s opening goal. The only blemish for Barca was Torres’ injury following his missed 29th-minute penalty. They play Bulgaria in Valladolid tomorrow (Tuesday).

Pedri in action against Georgia (Maria Gracia Jimenez/Soccrates /Getty Images)

The only two players who have not had much involvement so far are Marcus Rashford, who only played the second half of England’s 3-0 friendly win against Wales on Thursday, and Jules Kounde, who was rested for France’s 3-0 win against Azerbaijan. England travel to Latvia for a World Cup qualifier tomorrow (Tuesday) while France are away in Iceland tonight.

Is there anything else we might have missed and that we should know about this week?

Now it has been decided that the next two home matches against Girona and Olympiacos will be played at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, the focus will return to when the team can return to the Camp Nou. Their next home game after that is against Elche on November 2 and the city council has yet to grant them the license they need to reopen their refurbished ground at a reduced capacity of around 27,000. Barca’s preference is to return to the Camp Nou once they can host 45,000 people — which would be the second stage of their reopening process. To do so they would need the city council to approved a separate, second license.

The other big concern is whether Yamal will be fit for El Clasico. He suffered groin discomfort with Spain during the September international break, returned to play with Barca and then suffered a setback. He did not play in their most recent game against Sevilla.

At his press conference before that game, Flick said he could not guarantee the 18-year-old would be fit for the visit to Real Madrid, but the fact he trained normally on Monday is good news for Barca fans.