Liverpool manager Arne Slot has left Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo out of the club’s Champions League squad for the league phase, a decision that says less about the players’ quality and more about the unforgiving arithmetic of UEFA’s registration rules.
The club submitted a 22-player List A squad on September 3, 2025, with teenage winger Rio Ngumoha earning inclusion ahead of Chiesa. For a forward who scored in Liverpool’s Premier League opener against Bournemouth, watching European nights from the sidelines is a particularly bitter pill.
Why UEFA’s rules forced Slot’s hand
UEFA’s Champions League squad regulations allow clubs to register a maximum of 25 players on their List A squad. Of those 25 spots, eight are reserved exclusively for homegrown players, meaning athletes who spent at least three years at the club or within the same national association between the ages of 15 and 21.
That leaves just 17 slots for non-homegrown players. Chiesa, the Italian international who arrived with a reputation built at Juventus and with Italy’s national team, falls squarely into the non-homegrown category. So does Endo, the Japanese midfielder who signed from Stuttgart in 2023. When you have more than 17 foreign players worthy of Champions League football, someone has to miss out.
