Barcelona’s 17-year-old teenage phenom Lamine Yamal is saying yes to both causing waves as a world class soccer player making waves in world football and also coming up as the world most expensive young player in international footballer.
The new era under Hansi Flick is up and running at Barcelona thanks to no small part in the incredible influx of talents through La Masia.
Pau Cubarsi, Marc Bernal, Marc Casado, and Sergi Dominguez have all settled in and evidently made an impact on the team, but Lamine Yamal stands heads and shoulders above the rest.
While his talent is obvious and there for all to see and enjoy, it is the ridiculous consistency with which Yamal performs for club and country.
When Barcelona demolished Girona in a ruthless 4-1 win earlier this month, exacting revenge for last season’s defeat with a seasoned team performance, it was actually Yamal who ran the show. Bagging a brace for his troubles.
To follow up that exceptional performance, the youngster scored a stunning goal under the bright lights of the UEFA Champions League against Monaco to rescue Barcelona from a tricky situation. Albeit in vein, Yamal’s stocks only continued to rise.
It was followed by another top-notch display in the 5-1 win over Villarreal, while he scored another fine goal in a losing cause against Osasuna.
For a teenage kid with braces, what he has already achieved in his young career, what he is currently doing week-in-week-out, and continues to do, is simply unprecedented.
To witness his emergence is truly a blessing for the Barcelona supporters, and one that is undoubtedly propelling the club to greater heights.
Lamine Yamal is as ‘homegrown’ as they come. Born and brought up in Barcelona itself, the soon-to-be sensation was scouted and signed by the club back in 2014 at the tender age of seven.
The rest of his development can only be defined as ‘meteoric’.
In the few years he had been at La Masia, Yamal progressed rapidly through the youth ranks, finding himself with the Juvenil A or the U-19 team for the 2022-23 season, being the youngest recruit at fifteen years of age.
That season, Yamal’s story had begun to be seen. It was Xavi Hernandez’s first full season in charge and the youngster’s brilliance at the youth stages meant he was being considered for a shot in the senior team.
Throughout that title-winning season, Yamal established his credentials as a breakthrough prospect, finding himself included in the training sessions with the first team all while blowing opponents away for the U-19s.
As an impressed Jordi Cruyff noted, Xavi was so impressed by what he had seen the 15-year-old do in mere five minutes of training, that he couldn’t wait to give Yamal a chance amongst the big boys. Much sooner than it came about.
The fans were made to wait for it to happen, but Yamal was finally handed his senior debut by Xavi in April of 2023 during an emphatic 4-0 win over Real Betis in a league-winning coronation match for the Blaugrana.
At the time, the world had only come to know about a literal kid given his debut for Barcelona, little did anyone know what he would go on to achieve.
Ousmane Dembele’s departure in 2023 the following season meant Barcelona lost a source of creativity and agility in the offensive third.
With Raphinha not exactly the like-for-like replacement either for the gifts of the departed Frenchman, Lamine Yamal was called up to become a first-team regular on the right wing.
It is fair to say, he hasn’t looked back since. The tale of this 16-year-old boy from the local streets of Barcelona was about to take flight.
Only in his second appearance for the club, Yamal bagged two assists in a crazy win over Villarreal, a man-of-the-match performance which established his spot in the squad for good.
As the season went on, it became clear that Yamal’s profile and influence in the team was invaluable. So much so that, he displaced Raphinha from his natural position and forced the coach to fit the Brazilian on the left, a move that still reigns supreme to this day.
Credit to him, Yamal has repaid that faith in heaps. When the going gets tough, the team actively looks up to the prodigy for solutions.
There have been occasions when Yamal has carried the team on his back, conjured magic out of thin air and bailed out his team. At 17, he is already stacked with the ‘clutch’ genes.
The Spaniard made 50 appearances for the senior team even while being still registered with the B team. Although he did not register a ton of goals and assists, Yamal was Barcelona’s biggest offensive threat, a creative outlet with mazy agility and an incredible eye for a pass.
At such a tender age, his game is astonishingly complete. Yamal picks up the ball on the right flank and constantly looks to induce chaos for the opposition. He would either drive towards the defence or around them or play defence-splitting passes like a hot knife through butter.
Not to forget his signature move, the ‘Yamal Cross’. He would simply open up his body whilst receiving the ball and put in a gem of a whipped cross into the box with a sniper’s accuracy. Recently, he has shown the ability to pull a fifty-yard ‘trivela’ pass too.
With the array of tricks in his armoury, there is simply no way to stop the machine that is Yamal.
Moreover, young players often find themselves being too eager when they are called upon to deliver. Not Yamal. He is not a regular young player after all.
Yamal exudes a certain maturity – when to play the final ball and when to retain possession – a quality that not only raw talents but seasoned players simply don’t possess. It is also why many fans consider Yamal to be an upgrade to his predecessor on the right wing in Dembele.
To think how the teenager ascended to the first-team setup without even kicking a ball with the second team is a testament to his talent.
Yamal’s emergence also meant breaking multiple records as it happened.
For starters, Yamal became the youngest goalscorer in all three domestic competitions- La Liga, Supercopa de Espana and Copa del Rey.
Even some continental records were now held by the budding star. While he was the second youngest player to feature in UEFA Champions League history, he etched his name as the youngest to play in the knockout phases of the tournament and bag an assist (vs PSG in the quarterfinal).
