A surprise development at Barcelona: Hamza Abdelkarim out of Flick's plans

The player will return to the reserve team.

Egypt's Hamza Abdelkarim looks set to miss out on Barcelona's first-team squad for Saturday's La Liga meeting with Real Betis. He trained with the reserves in the morning and skipped the first team's evening session, a strong hint that he'll be used with Barcelona Atletic this round.

Spanish newspaper "Sport" report that the Egyptian forward sat out the first team's final session before the Betis clash, working with Barcelona Atletic instead. Hansi Flick and his staff are leaning towards leaving him out of the squad so he can feature in the reserve side's game against Utebo, also scheduled for Saturday.

Flick, meanwhile, is welcoming back several key men. The German has confirmed Raphinha and Frenkie de Jong are both fit again after the physical problems that sidelined them in recent weeks, handing his staff extra options before the final squad is named.

Vareñas is fit too, which strengthens his case for a place in the first-team plans and leaves Abdelkarim as the likeliest man to drop out, despite training regularly of late.

Sending the Egyptian down to the reserves is about minutes. Barcelona want him playing and developing rather than sitting in a first-team squad without getting on the pitch.

Everything will become clear when Barcelona name their squad for Betis. For Abdelkarim, regular football is the quickest route to experience, and to bigger opportunities with the first team down the line.