Ciaran McCarthy | Planet Football
Lamine Yamal is as precious an asset asBarcelona has, bursting onto the scene as a teen and remaining one of the first names on the teamsheet since.
Seeing as essentially the second coming of Lionel Messi, that the Argentine superstar baptised him only gives cause to those claims – let’s forget it was for a photoshoot and not an actual baptism.
In 136 senior games for Barca, Yamal has 40 goals and 47 assists to his name, with 17 direct goal contributions coming in the Champions League.
For Spain, the teen had a big hand in the 2024 Euros triumph and, in 23 games, has scored 6 goals and assisted on 12.
Yamal is showing no signs of slowing, and a social media post from Sofascore suggests he is, in fact, the most devastatingly well-rounded attacker in the world, more so than stars who have a decade more experience than he does.
The post lists players with 15+ goals, 10+ assists, and 75+ dribbles for the club this season.
Erling Haaland and Harry Kane lead in goals, while Bruno Fernandes excels in assists.
There are a few players who fit into multiple categories: Michael Olise has over 10 assists and 75 dribbles; Kylian Mbappe has ticked off 75 dribbles and 15 goals; while Luis Diaz has paired goals and assists.
Yamal stands alone as the only player to exceed all three categories this season: 15+ goals, 10+ assists, and 75+ successful dribbles.
He’s on the nose with goals at 15, with 12 assists alongside them, but it’s the dribbles which accentuate just how good a player the young Spaniard really is.
He has not just scraped above 75 successful dribbles, but he’s striking fear into defenders and running entire back lines ragged as he’s so far completed 153 dribbles this season.
Yamal is a unicorn the likes of which seldom come around, and the fact that he has such fantastic assets at such a young age suggests he’s going to boss world football for at least the next decade.
You only need to watch Yamal play for a few minutes here and there to get a gauge of just how special he is.
He puts defenders under a lot of stress with perfect close control, body feints in either direction to make it unclear where he’s going, and great skill and composure to breeze past opponents.
Those put him in great positions to strike on goal, but he also knows when to lift his head up and find a team-mate, with all of that put together making him a major headache to come up against.
If sides know how to stop the prodigious talent, not many have shown it very well to this point in the Spaniard’s career.
