Lamine Yamal produced another eye-catching display for Barcelona, weaving through defences down the right flank, setting up two goals within three minutes and collecting the player of the match award. The performance came eight weeks into the club season, a stretch in which the Spanish forward has kept adding to his already remarkable statistics.
This is not Yamal’s breakthrough year. He first emerged as a 16-year-old in the 2023-24 season, but his consistency for both club and country over the past two months has led observers to compare him with some of the finest young talents of recent years. Since returning from the World Cup as a champion, the Catalan club’s 19-year-old has enjoyed a scintillating run of form.
How Yamal’s numbers compare with Messi and Mbappe
Across eight match weeks, Yamal has scored eight goals and provided nine assists in 10 appearances in all competitions for Barcelona. That gives him 17 goal contributions so far. Lionel Messi, a Barcelona and Argentina great, had 14 in the 2008-09 season, when he won his first Ballon d’Or at the age of 19, scoring eight goals and making six assists.
Yamal has made clear he wants the award in 11 days, but he will face strong competition from France’s Kylian Mbappe and England captain Harry Kane. Mbappe leads the attack at Real Madrid, Barcelona’s fiercest rivals, and has broken goal-scoring records of his own. Real have not won the Champions League since the 2023-24 season, when they claimed their record-extending 15th trophy, although Mbappe helped them beat Inter Milan in their first match last month.
Before moving to Real in 2024, Mbappe was in prime scoring form at Paris Saint-Germain, where he had joined in 2017 as an 18-year-old. As a 19-year-old, he scored 12 goals and made four assists in his first 10 games, a total of 16 contributions. That was one fewer than Yamal’s current figure after the same number of matches.
Shared milestones and a link to Messi
Comparing Yamal’s overall career with Messi’s would be grossly unfair, but the Spaniard is clearly following in the footsteps of his club legend. Both players have scored braces in their first five La Liga games. Messi managed it at 25 in the 2012-13 season, while Yamal has matched the feat this campaign.
Messi’s connection to Yamal goes back to his early days. In April 2007, Messi scored his famous solo goal against Getafe, dribbling past five players from his own half while Camp Nou looked on in awe. Three months later, Yamal was born. Not long after, Messi was pictured with the baby in a photo that went viral this year.
The interest intensified during the World Cup, when a television commercial showed a young Messi bathing baby Yamal. Many people initially assumed the image was AI-generated, but it is genuine and dates back to 2007. It was taken during a UNICEF fundraising shoot at Camp Nou, when the 20-year-old Messi met Yamal, who was only five months old.
The two Barcelona stars met in the World Cup final on July 19. Messi walked away in tears as Yamal’s Spain lifted the trophy, but the pair exchanged a warm embrace before that. Yamal later revealed what he had said to Messi on the pitch in New York. “I said thank you for everything you gave football,” he told a British newspaper. Before the final, much of the attention had focused on the contest between 39-year-old Messi and 19-year-old Yamal, which was likened to a master against apprentice clash.
Nineteen years on from that photograph, Yamal is already chasing several of Messi’s Barcelona milestones. The comparison extends to how old each of them was when they reached 150 appearances for the club.
Flick hails Yamal’s impact on Barcelona’s league form
Yamal’s goal tally this season is greater than the combined scoring of several rival La Liga sides. His seven individual league goals outnumber what Valencia (six), Getafe (four) and Malaga (four) have managed as teams.
His manager, Hansi Flick, has also been quick to praise the forward’s form and skill. After Barcelona’s 4-1 win over Galatasaray in Istanbul, the Barcelona boss spoke highly of his number 10. “When you see the chances Lamine creates in every training session, it’s the same in matches. I have a lot of top-quality players. Everyone’s watching Lamine – that’s only natural.”
Flick added: “It’s incredible to have players like that; he’s turned the game around for us.”
