Federico Chiesa Left Out of Liverpool's Champions League Squad
Federico Chiesa has been dealt another brutal Champions League setback, left out of Liverpool’s squad for the new league phase as Andoni Iraola finalised his European list.
The Italian winger misses the cut alongside midfielder Wataru Endo, a call that underlines both the ruthlessness of elite competition and the depth now crowding Liverpool’s dressing room. For Chiesa, it means another season of watching Europe’s biggest nights from the outside.
Another door slammed shut
This is not a new wound, just a reopened one. Chiesa was omitted from the Champions League squad last season as well, only clawing his way back into the European picture after Giovanni Leoni suffered a serious long-term injury. Even then, his involvement was limited.
He did taste the stage briefly. A debut off the bench in Italy last September, soon after his £10m move from Juventus, looked like the start of something. Instead, it stands as a rare continental cameo in Liverpool colours, not the launchpad he expected.
Now, as the club locks in its group for the upcoming league phase, his name is missing again.
Iraola’s hard call
Iraola’s decision speaks to the reshaping of this Liverpool squad. The club has invested, rotated, and rebuilt, and the result is a brutal numbers game when UEFA registration rules bite.
With multiple fronts to attack and only so many slots available, someone was always going to lose out. This time it is Chiesa and Endo, two experienced internationals squeezed to the margins while others get the nod for Europe’s elite competition.
The coaching staff will lean on what remains: a stacked attacking line and a midfield designed to cope with the relentless rhythm of domestic and Champions League fixtures. For Chiesa, that depth is both Liverpool’s strength and his personal problem.
Domestic grind, European backdrop
With the Champions League route blocked for now, Chiesa’s season narrows sharply. His battle moves to the training pitches of Kirkby and the domestic calendar, where every cameo, every start, becomes an argument for his reintegration.
Liverpool’s schedule offers little breathing space. League games, cups, rotation, fatigue — all of it can reshape a pecking order quickly. And looming over it all is a marquee Champions League clash with Inter on January 19, a tie that would have carried special weight for an Italian forward trying to reassert himself on familiar soil.
He will watch that one from afar unless circumstances change.
Last season, an injury to Leoni cracked the door open and dragged Chiesa back into the European frame. If the pattern repeats and fitness issues hit again, his name will be one of the first mentioned as a potential replacement.
Until then, the question hangs over him and over Liverpool’s season: can he turn this snub into fuel, or will one of Italy’s most gifted wide men spend another year waiting for a stage he once seemed destined to own?
