Roony Bardghji is one of the biggest rising stars in the world right now. Despite being just 17, the talented teenager has already made 52 appearances for FC København, scoring seven goals. Earlier this month, he scored the winning penalty in a Champions League shootout — a panenka past Sparta Prague goalkeeper Peter Vindahl Jensen. Other nations are taking notice, too.
Bardghji, born in Kuwait City, is currently eligible for two national teams: Sweden and Syria. While Syria has managed to improve and bring in some dual nationals, it’s generally assumed that the youngster’s future lies with Sweden. It doesn’t hurt that he has already represented Sweden at youth level, either. His agent, however, says that his future might be elsewhere.
As reported by Swedish site FotbollDirekt, Bardghji’s agent Ahmed El Ali stated that Bardghji has another option — Denmark. Bardghji has been in Denmark since joining København’s academy in 2020 and is reportedly considering picking up Danish citizenship.
Denmark has some promising talents of its own, notably Manchester United striker Rasmus Højlund. The Danes would no doubt be interested in adding Bardghji to their ranks, but, despite the comments from Ahmed, it doesn’t seem likely he would switch.
After all, the København star is playing for the Swedish u21 team at 17, and a senior call-up doesn’t seem too far away. He also doesn’t have Danish citizenship yet, so he would have to wait regardless. This could be a scare tactic as part of an attempt to get Sweden to give him a senior call-up sooner rather than later.
With or without Bardghji, Sweden is building a promising team. However, it would be a big loss if their promising star left for their southern rivals.
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Thomas Dahlstrøm Nielsen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
