The next move on the chess board could not have been clearer for Barcelona and their coach, Pere Romeu: a new queen has broken into the Blaugrana midfield. Clara Serrajordi has made substantial moves already: she made her first-team debut at the age of 17, started ahead of Aitana Bonmatí in the 2026 Champions League final and is filling the void left by the departed Alexia Putellas this season.

Serrajordi is a keen chess player and uses it to disconnect from football and there are similarities to how she plays. A pure representation of a La Masia-educated midfielder, she is always one move ahead, conscious of the space around her and fully aware of the importance of each teammate.

Serrajordi was scouted at the age of 11 in 2018 when playing for CE Llerona who were in the same league as Barcelona’s alevín team. “I would play against them and they were so good,” she reflects as she sits down with Moving the Goalposts. “I thought to myself, those girls are going to be my teammates and I didn’t believe it at first. I would just repeat to myself: ‘I’m going to be with the best’.”

At 18 years old it can be difficult to imagine what lies ahead and even though Barcelona give academy products more chances than almost anywhere else in elite football, the statistics are not great. There is no official percentage but an investigation done by Mundo Deportivo in 2022 concluded that only 2-5% of the men’s La Masia players make it to the first team. The figure may well be the same for the women’s side.

“When I first signed I never thought I would achieve everything that I have,” says Serrajordi, who has already won a Champions League, two league titles, two Copa de la Reinas and one Supercopa. “It’s been incredible to grow up here and to be able to get to the first team – a dream that every girl at the club has. When you first arrive at the club, you don’t think you’re going to make it to the first team.”

In the 2025-26 season, Serrajordi started 19 of 26 league matches she played in, totalling a goal and three assists along the way. She sustained an arm fracture at the beginning of this season and was out for a month, but has already totalled 311 minutes on the pitch.

“I didn’t think that I would make it to the first team until I started playing for the B team and I would go train with the first team every so often,” she adds. “I would say, ‘wow, I’m training with the best, I hope I can make it and play a game with them.’ And when I started being called up for matchday squads, that’s when I first thought, ‘I’m here, and can actually make it’.”

In May of this year Romeu picked Serrajordi to start the Champions League final against OL Lyonnes in Oslo. Barcelona won 4-0 and Serrajordi won her first Champions League. You feel it will not be the last. “I didn’t expect [to be a starter], honestly. I found out in the pre-match talk and when [Romeu] told me, I only thought ‘OK, we need to go out with everything and fight for the most important title of the season.’ For me, it was a dream and to have achieved that in my first year; it was special.”

There are clear similarities between the Llinars del Vallès native and Putellas, physically and footballistically. Serrajordi was taken under the Barcelona captain’s wing and seems like the most natural replacement for the midfield legend, who left her childhood club to join London City Lionesses last summer.

“In the end, Alexia is an indisputable Barça player,” says Serrajordi. “All the years that she was at the club and everything that she’s shown the world, she’s one of a kind, and no one can be like her. But in terms of style of play, we all play very similar.

“All the midfielders that come from the academy have a very similar style of play. We all have the Barça style and she definitely has it. So, there are some similarities, yes, but I can only hope to one day become like her, but I still have a lot of things to improve.”

The balance between youth and experience at Barcelona is a key part of the success of the club. With departures and injuries, the blaugrana club has been forced to rely on their academy prospects to fill in the big gaps on the pitch and in the dressing room.

“I had always followed the first team and all the players,” Serrajordi says when asked what it was like to play with her idols. “From the first moment they adopted me and all the younger players who came into the first team. Because of that, we’re able to perform on the pitch the way we do, they give us confidence to play our game.

“To be surrounded by the best in the world is easy. A lot of people say, wow, Serra plays really well, but Serra wouldn’t play like this if she wasn’t next to Patri [Guijarro], Aitana, Alexia and all my teammates.”

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