![\"Birmingham](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785576737_513_0x0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hamza Abdelkarim stated his case to become FC Barcelona’s new number 9 with a brace against Birmingham on Friday.<\/p>\n
NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n
FC Barcelona had a new figure wear its iconic number 9 shirt on Friday against Birmingham, for the first time in the post-Robert Lewandowski<\/a>.<\/p>\n With the Pole having joined the Chicago Fire this summer on a free transfer following four highly successful years in Catalonia, the jersey donned by greats such as Luis Suarez, Samuel Eto\u2019o and Ronaldo Nazario is vacant. <\/p>\n As a reaction to this, we\u2019ve seen what so far look to be failed pursuits of Julian Alvarez – after he reportedly agreed to join the Catalans for five years – and Bournemouth\u2019s Junior Kroupi, who\u2019s now out for three to four months amid having to undergo foot surgery.<\/p>\n Consequently then, Bar\u00e7a might have to look in-house for its next front man, with a candidate stepping forward during Friday\u2019s loss to Birmingham on penalties.<\/p>\n Is Hamza Abdelkarim ready to become Barcelona\u2019s number 9?<\/p>\n With his loan deal from Al Ahly made permanent for a bargain $1.7 million (\u20ac1.5 million) fee ahead of a World Cup campaign for Egypt, Hamza immediately joined Hansi Flick<\/a>\u2019s first team group in preseason training upon return to Catalonia.<\/p>\n As is common every summer, Hamza is part of a select group of reserve and La Masia stars that get the chance to impress the German, and who might remain a part of the senior fold as we\u2019ve previously seen with the likes of Marc Bernal and Marc Casado.<\/p>\n Through his two goals in a 2-2 regular time draw at St. Andrew\u2019s Stadium, watched by former Birmingham academy product and Real Madrid rival Jude Bellingham, Hamza certainly took a step in the right direction as per becoming a part of the furniture. <\/p>\n \u201cHamza is very humble and has a good character. He always tries to do his best and has great potential. As a striker you have to appear in those situations inside the box and today he was there. That\u2019s what I ask of a nine,\u201d said Flick post match.<\/p>\n While his first strike was a penalty, the second, as implied by the manager, had Hamza pounce in the box. Perfect positioning allowed him to hit home a rebound, when Roony Bardghji\u2019s long range shot was parried into his path.<\/p>\n SPORT writes<\/a> that despite his young age of 18, the Egyptian is a \u201cvery mature player\u201d with great physical conditions and an \u201cextraordinary goalscoring ability\u201d. <\/p>\n Barcelona reportedly has no doubt that he will kick on at the Spotify Camp Nou. Yet the question remains as to whether he is the 9 they have been searching for yet failing to deliver in fruitless pursuits on the transfer market – especially when Ferran Torres is being linked to Paris Saint-Germain<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hamza Abdelkarim stated his case to become FC Barcelona’s new number 9 with a brace against Birmingham on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,2046,223,934,9303,930,91,674,1819,83],"class_list":["post-64190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-catalonia","tag-fc-barcelona","tag-ferran-torres","tag-hamza-abdelkarim","tag-hansi-flick","tag-jude-bellingham","tag-julian-alvarez","tag-paris-saint-germain","tag-real-madrid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}