Lamine Yamal, making the extraordinary look perfunctory since… 2007. Just when you thought Barcelona’s young superstar had hit the upper ceiling of what could reasonably be expected from a 17-year-old on a football pitch, he goes and blows a hole in a Champions League knockout tie with two of the most outstanding moments of brilliance the competition has seen this season, and does them in the same half of football.
First the assist. Sending Florentino flying to the floor and Nicolas Otamendi crashing into Robert Lewandowski’s inadvertent ball screen, Yamal went flying into the box, space opening up to try to bend it into the far corner. Only the youngster will know if that is what he was trying to do. What he did was curl the ball away from goal and right into Raphinha’s stride for the opening goal.
If anyone other than maybe half a dozen players on the planet did that you’d call it a shank with confidence. At an age where he cannot legally vote in an election, Yamal’s decision making and technical ability is such that you have to at least consider the possibility that he meant it.
There was no doubt about his goal, the strike which restored Barcelona’s two goal aggregate lead over Benfica after Nicolas Otamendi had struck from a corner. Picking the ball up near the right sideline, Yamal blew past one challenge but his touch was taking him away from goal as he drew level with the edge of the box. Again that seemed to be no matter.
With the most minimal of back-lift and next to no strikethrough, Yamal met the ball in stride. The bend he imparted on it left Anatolii Trubin without a chance of getting close to it. Even for a youngster with his own immaculate scoring scrapbook, this might just be the pick of the lot.
Barcelona would go on to add more to their lead when Raphinha finished off a swift counter just before half time. The Brazilian might have ended this game with two goals but unquestionably it was Yamal’s day. Yet again. The temptation would be to label this, the first Champions League knockout match in which he has scored, as a breakout moment for the youngster. For most it would be. In Yamal’s case we probably passed the breakout moment some time in Euro 2024, maybe when he overtook Pele to become the youngest ever goalscorer at a major tournament.
Indeed at 17 years, 241 days, Yamal became the youngest player to score and assist in a Champions League game, beating Breel Embolo’s previous record by three weeks and a day. Lionel Messi, perhaps the last player to look this good at this young an age, scored and assisted in a 5-0 win over Panathinaikos at 18 years, 131 days of age.
Yamal and company are now the first side officially in the hat for the quarterfinals of the Champions League (sorry Arsenal, you will have to turn up tomorrow night). That looks like another major occasion to bend to the will of a teenager, perhaps smashing his way through Inter’s high grade defense.
If that is who Barcelona end up against, you wouldn’t bet against Yamal making a huge impact. Such is his trajectory, it feels a matter of when he next overwhelms an elite defense, not if. How long then before we start taking one word out of the label so often applied to him, the best young player in the world?
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