Two years to the day since Lamine Yamal made his debut in professional football at the age of 15, the teenager has taken another first in his stride.
On Tuesday, the Barcelona winger, now 17, took centre stage as he gave his first press conference on the eve of his side’s Champions League semi-final first leg against Inter.
If you had any concerns about how he might adapt to that situation, though, you need not have worried — Yamal is fearless.
“Fear while playing the game? I left all my fears in the park of my neighbourhood, back in Mataro, a while ago,” he said in the blink of an eye, a reference to the hours he spent playing against older kids while growing up in his neighbourhood of Rocafonda, a district around 30 kilometres (18 miles) to the north-east of Barcelona.
This was the most packed Barcelona’s training facilities have been all season for a pre-match press conference, with more than 100 people crammed into the room. Treble-chasing Barca are expected to welcome 645 reporters for Wednesday’s first leg against Inter, the most for a Champions League game since they moved to their temporary home at Montjuic in 2023.
Yamal showed up with his recently dyed blond hair — a new style which he unveiled before Saturday’s Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid and which is inspired by the character Goku from the anime series Dragon Ball Z.
It is not just that Yamal does not mind being in the spotlight — he thrives in it.
He will make his 100th appearance for the club against the reigning Serie A champions and it is difficult to sum up his achievements in that time. More than his 21 goals and 33 assists in 99 games, he has played a starring role in Barca’s treble quest this season. He is coach Hansi Flick’s go-to player in attack, the biggest source of creativity in this team and a player whose progression has long felt unstoppable.
Yamal is the youngest player to have scored for Barcelona. He became a European Championship winner with Spain last summer, scoring in the semi-finals against France and producing a key assist in the final against England. And he has kept up those jaw-dropping achievements this season. According to Opta his 20 assists to date in all competitions are only five off the tally Lionel Messi rattled up in 2019-20 — the most any Barca player has managed over the last decade.
The comparisons between Yamal and the former Barca icon Messi are inevitable. They went into overdrive when photos of a teenage Messi holding Yamal as a baby for a charity photoshoot emerged last year — but Yamal does not like those parallels.
“I don’t want to compare myself with anyone, and even less with Messi,” he told the room. “I leave that to all of you (reporters). I try to follow my own path. Obviously, I look up to him as the best footballer ever that he is, but I don’t do the comparison.”
Yamal revealed he has never spoken to Messi in person — even though The Athletic has reported how the Inter Miami and Argentina star played a key role in Adidas’ campaign to sign Yamal in 2023.
His answers were not long. He kept things short and sharp, but always bold. He spoke as if each of his quotes might be clipped up on TikTok, the social media platform which Yamal uses regularly, on which he has more than 30million followers and where some of his recent videos have hit up to 180m views.
“Yesterday with the electric breakdown in Spain I didn’t know what to do!” he joked, with Barcelona having had to endure hours without electricity — and the internet — due to a power cut.
Yamal’s brashness has already been evident over his short career. Last summer, he responded to criticism from France midfielder Adrien Rabiot on his Instagram story, posting a message which read, “Move in silence, only speak when it’s time to say checkmate”.
When Yamal then scored one of the goals of the tournament to eliminate France from the semi-finals, he posted a fresh Instagram story saying “Checkmate”.
The latest example of that confidence came after Barca’s fine 3-2 win after extra time against arch-rivals Madrid in the Copa del Rey. Yamal gave a quick interview to club media following that win in which he did not hold back about Barca’s Clasico rivals — whom they have now beaten in all three of their meetings this campaign.
“I was speaking to (Barca defender Ronald) Araujo in the hotel before the game,” he said. “And I told him it didn’t matter if we conceded one goal, or even two, because this season they (Madrid) can’t beat us. We have proved it and we are so happy.”
In the Inter press conference, Yamal was asked about critics who had used that interview to argue he has been too cocky over the past few days. Again, he did not seem too worried.
“While I keep winning, they can’t say much,” he said. “When they beat me, they will be able to.”
It did not go unnoticed in Barcelona that in recent weeks Yamal has changed his Instagram profile picture to one with a message, as the Catalans enter the crucial phase of the season looking to lift the treble for the third time in their history.
“Off the radar, on the mission,” it reads.
“Dying my hair blond, posting stories on Instagram to respond to critics and playing with it all… Deep down, I think I do this stuff because I am just bored at home,” Yamal said on Tuesday. “I want to stay entertained and have fun. But it helps me to be focused and has gone well so far.”
When it comes to the football itself and putting Barcelona back at the top of the game, however, Yamal does not joke. “We have a lot of players in the team who come from the academy,” he said. “We’ve lived through what it means to be Barca fans.”
Those fans know what Yamal is talking about.
It is almost 10 years since they last won the Champions League and this is the first time since Messi’s departure in 2021 that Barca have made it to the semi-finals of that competition. This group of young players have inspired supporters at a time when Barca have experienced significant off-pitch problems.
“We want Barca to win and to be among the best in business,” Yamal added. “You can see that feeling in our team, it’s a dream for us and it has a lot to do with our performance this season. We remember when the club won the Champions League in 2015 and we don’t only play because that’s our job — we also feel the colours of this football club.”
Yamal could not have issued a better rallying cry ahead of Barca’s most important test of the season. As his audience were acutely aware, the youngster is ready.
(Top photo: Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
