Barcelona reached the final of the Champions League a decade ago, with Lionel Messi as a mole holder. Now, the Catalan giants rely on another generational talent in Lamine Yamal as “Factor X” when they welcome Inter Milan on Wednesday in a confrontation in the semi-finals at first glance. At the top of his powers, Messi scored two brilliant semi-match goals in 2015 against Bayern Munich on the way to the triple, and while Yamal, 17, still perfects his finish, he holds the key to the team’s potential success this season.
The teenager, on left foot but operating on the right flank with freedom to walk, as Messi has done for many years, is what gives Hansi Flilliant Barca their advantage.
Yamal has shown precisely that in their exciting final victory for Clasico Copa Del Rey against Real Madrid on Saturday in Seville, establishing two of Barcelona’s three goals.
He showed it all the season, with 14 goals and 24 assists, and countless but crucial lightnings of invention, genius and flair, in the back of his superb Euro 2024 displays with Spain champions last summer.
The Barça attacker of Flick captured the imagination and a large part is due to Yamal.
In the city center of Barcelona, it is rare to walk more than a few minutes without seeing someone wear a yamal shirt replica.
On match days, a sea of 19 shirts no 19 sets up the stairs and mechanical stairs that reach the Olympic stadium of the city hill of the city.
It was Messi’s n ° 10, with a range of different Barcelona shirts of different years, or the blue and white sky stripes from Argentina.
With Yamal, the shirts are identical, given its ascent to celebrity, it was terribly fast and it was its first season with No 19.
‘We saw a genius’
If Barcelona wins the Champions League, Yamal is a potential winner of Golden Ball.
Such a feat was difficult to imagine so quickly that the former coach of Barcelona Xavi Hernandez made him his debut at 15 in April 2023 against Real Betis at La Liga.
Yamal looked a little intimidated, rightly, while Camp Nou dominated around him, with tens of thousands of analyzes analyzing each stage.
It was perhaps the only time, because since then he has not shown the slightest indication of being intimidated.
“I am surprised by the incredible mentality (young players),” said Barcelona Captain Ronald Araujo last week.
“They are so calm … These children of the Masia, it surprised me a lot.”
Yamal’s mother was more worried than the young person himself.
“My mother is afraid for me when I start, but she supports me a lot,” he said, while finding her place at the club.
These initial nerves disappeared so quickly and despite its tender age, Yamal began to assume the creative weight of the team while only 16 years old.
While waiting for results for its secondary exams, Yamal cemented its star status with Spain at euros in Germany, was 17 years old the day before the final.
“We have seen a genius, the work of a genius,” spared the Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente, after Yamal scored a beautiful goal against France in the semi-finals.
It is now essential for Barcelona, who has struggled each time he has not started this season.
While Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha have the share of the objectives, many of them would not be possible without the contribution of Yamal.
Either directly, of its dangerous cross in the swing, or indirectly, because of its incisive dribbling to eliminate three opponents in the construction.
“Lamine Yamal … He’s like Messi. He surprises me? No. Everyone knows how good he is, he can dribble in front of anyone,” said the former Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde, earlier this season.
Yamal, who, as a baby in 2007, was remarkably photographed being bathed by 20 -year -old Messi for a charity calendar, has always been suspicious of parallels, inevitable as they seem.
“Messi is the best player in history, and being compared to him means that I do things well, but I try to be myself,” he said in February.
If Yamal can bring Barcelona back to the final of the Champions League, these comparisons will only grow.
(This story has not been published by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a unionized flow.)
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