Julius OkorieBarcelona teenager Lamine Yamal, marked his 100th game for the la liga giants on Wednesday night emerging the best player in the 3-3 thriller against Inter Milan in the Champions League first leg semi-finals.
Yamal who turns 18 in July, was the tormentor in chief in the encounter which Barcelona came close to winning but for some crucial misses. His exploits so far has seen many comparing with the likes of Lionel Messi who incidentally was equally magical while with Barcelona.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelRio Ferdinand believes Barcelona’s 17-year-old wonderkid Lamine Yamal is already the best player in the world.
Yamal scored a stunning solo goal to bring the Catalan giants back into the game after they had fallen 2-0 down inside 21 minutes.
It was not just a goal, in so doing, he became the youngest player ever to score in a Champions League semi-final beating the record set by Kylian Mbappe. He achieved the feat at 17 years and 291 days.
Mbappe scored his goal in the semi-final in 2017, as Monaco lost 2-1 to Juventus. He was 18 years and 140 days old.
Yamal caused Inter problems all night in his 100th game for Barcelona, and Ferdinand took to X after the match to heap praise on the sensational teenager.
‘As a pure football talent I’m going as far as to say I think Lamine Yamal is on another level to any player playing the game in the top 5 leagues in world football,’ Ferdinand wrote. ’17yrs old – Truly unbelievable.’
Despite Yamal being the youngest player on the pitch, Barcelona constantly turned to him for inspiration in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg.
Yamal’s display also had the CBS Sports punditry team of Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards purring about him.
Carragher even went as far as to compare the youngster to the iconic Lionel Messi.
‘That was Messi-esque,’ said Carragher. ‘That was like watching Messi in his heyday. The whole game almost stopping to just see what he was going to do. It was just brilliant.’
CBS then showed a graphic that revealed Yamal and Messi both registered 55 goal contributions in their first 100 games for Barcelona, with Messi having just one more trophy to his name.
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Messi had 19 more goals, but Yamal was comfortably clear of the Argentine legend when it came to assists.
Giving his verdict on Yamal, Henry suggested that he could even go on to surpass Messi in time.
Henry said: ‘One thing that always amazes me in football is you always think there’s no way that someone is going to be better, or might be better, or look like they might be better than Ronaldo and Messi, and in my time Pele and Maradona, Zidane, R9 or whatever. And then Lamine Yamal arrives. ‘It’s just crazy what he’s doing. It’s just abnormal.’
Barcelona’s hopes of reaching the Champions League final hang in the balance after Wednesday’s first leg, but they have Yamal to thank for keeping them in the tie.
Yamal was out of action for two months earlier in the season due to injury, which may count against him in the final reckoning.
But he has still recorded 39 goals contributions in 49 appearances this season. He has four Champions League goals and four assists in 11 games. He has scored in every stage of the competition so far. If Barcelona are to claim authority in Milan come May 7, Yamal will no doubt be pivotal in the final analysis.
Julius Okorie is Chief Sports and Entertainment Correspondent for Prime Business Africa. He began his journalism career with the Champion Newspaper and Sporting Champion and later moved on to Daily Independent and the Nation Newspapers. Okorie joined Prime Business Africa in 2024 bringing on board 20 years of experience in writing investigative news on Sports and Entertainment. His well researched and highly informative articles on Sports Business and general entertainment are followed by a wide range of audience.
