Barcelona have signed nine-year-old Zico Jr Marecaldi from Swedish fifth division club BK Olympic.

Zico, who is regarded as one of the best young talents in European football, impressed the Spanish outfit during a recruitment camp in Catalonia.

"Zico was obviously very happy [when Barcelona said they wanted him], but his first reaction when he found out that he would be staying at the boarding school was that he cried and said he did not want to leave me," his father Antonio told Eurosport.

"But 20 minutes later, he had already decided it was a good idea. Otherwise we would have called off the whole thing."

Should Zico turn out for the first team, he will become the third Swede to play for Barcelona after Henrik Larsson and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.