It was exactly one year ago when I fully realised that Lamine Yamal is the real deal.
At the European Championship of 2024, he announced himself on the global stage with Spain, but for me, seeing him clinging to the advertising hoardings at the Santiago Bernabeu, smiling and showing off his blue and red braces, was the definitive moment. He was a star. And he was Barcelona’s.
That day, October 26, 2024, Yamal was celebrating his side’s 4-0 victory at the home of their Clasico rivals.
Today, Madrid and Barca meet again. At the same ground. On October 26.
Yamal no longer has those braces, though.
His extraordinary rise has only accelerated over the past 12 months. He has become a truly world-class player, a joy to watch, an attacking genius who can conjure the magic most can’t even dream of.
We at The Athletic have followed his progress every step of the way since his record-breaking Barcelona debut in April 2023 at 15 years and 290 days old.
Let us talk you through it…
Where did it all begin?
April 29, 2023. Barcelona 4-0 Real Betis. La Liga.
On April 29, 2023, two important things happened in my life: I turned 32 and Lamine Yamal made his debut. The club had been warning us for some time that a very powerful generation of footballers was coming and that one of them was destined to be the “new Lionel Messi”.
I confess that I take such statements with a pinch of salt, because these days we tend to always be looking for the ‘new whoever’ before the player has even shown their true talent. But this time felt different. Coaches who had worked with him at La Masia insisted: “I haven’t seen a player like him since Leo.” And we all know what that means.
There was a certain amount of expectation to see this 15-year-old boy play, but no one could reasonably have expected what has followed to unfold so quickly.
Yamal and Ronald Araujo on the former’s Barca debut (Eric Alonso/Getty Images)
Looking at the photos from that day now, he looks about 10 years old. It is so striking. He wore the No 41 shirt and came on as a substitute for Gavi against Real Betis in the 83rd minute. Shortly afterwards he conjured a shot at goal and nearly scored. Of course he did.
He left the pitch and the camera followed him, but none of the opposing players or the crowd paid him any special attention. Now it seems surreal to me, seeing the phenomenon he has become.
“We are talking about a footballer that can define an era at this club,” Xavi, then the Barca boss, said after the match.
I didn’t see it coming, I admit, but that day I was given one of the best gifts you can give a football fan: a star was born.
Is he really that good?
August 2023. Villarreal away. The game that gave an answer.
Let me say that Barcelona fans are known for being very long-suffering and they seem eternally dissatisfied. I remember my grandfather ranting that the team could have played better on a day when they won 5-0.
With Yamal, excitement was building as fans realised what they might have on their hands: a chosen one.
The problem was (there is always a problem at Barcelona, you see), this had all happened recently with Ansu Fati. His emergence at the age of 16 in 2019 was thrilling, but just a year later he tore his meniscus and was never the same again.
This was in Barcelona’s thoughts. Xavi wanted to introduce Yamal gradually to avoid any potential injuries, as players are more vulnerable at that age, and to prevent him from becoming overwhelmed. But despite having only turned 16 in July, he quickly broke down any barriers to the first team at the beginning of the 2023-24 season.
There was one match in particular. It was against Villarreal on August 27, the third match of the 2023-24 campaign. He didn’t score that night, but he made the right wing his. In a crazy 4-3 win, he assisted Gavi for the opening goal, created all of Barca’s most dangerous moments, and hit the post twice. He was named player of the match.
Twelve days later, Yamal made his international debut with Spain, becoming the senior national team’s youngest ever player at 16 years and 57 days — and the youngest scorer. Of course he scored.
Now, there was simply no going back. His talent had become impossible to stop.
The world wakes up (but Yamal was still napping)
June-July 2024. Germany. A champion in Spain’s red.
Barcelona’s 2023-24 season faded badly. Yamal’s certainly didn’t, but even still, the rest of the world hadn’t quite woken up to him. That would all change at the European Championship. It was the turning point that took him from promising player to phenomenon.
The further into the Euros Spain progressed, the more his popularity grew. That’s when you started to see more and more shirts with his name and number in the streets.
Those same concerns over asking too much too soon, of body and of mind, took on a new dimension. It was an international conversation now. Many were concerned about how a child turning 17 the day before the Euro 2024 final would handle it all.
Lamine Yamal magic 🪄#EURO2024 pic.twitter.com/0sJF9xfDtw
— UEFA EURO (@UEFAEURO) July 9, 2025
Really, he had already given us the answers, with his spectacular goal against France in the semi-final, his captivating comradeship with Nico Williams and his tournament-high four assists on Spain’s march to victory.
He just took it all in his stride. On the way to the final against England, he fell asleep on the team bus.
I think that sums up his personality so well; the calmness with which he takes things. He is here to enjoy.
The Ballon d’Or debate begins
A season of magic. Electrifying moments. That set of braces.
Lamine Yamal was now the player.
During the 2024 summer, it had already been decided that he would be Barca’s key component for the following season. His consolidation as a truly world-class individual was as rapid as it was total.
At Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu on October 26, he scored a spectacular goal and celebrated by putting his index finger to his lip. He smiled a huge smile, showing off his sponsored braces, which the Two Jeys brand had customised with blue and red stars.
It was as if he wanted to underline, with that gesture, that a boy who was not yet old enough to drive had just stormed one of the world’s greatest stadiums. It was the third goal as Barca won 4-0.
Yamal celebrating his goal in Barca’s emphatic Clasico win at the Bernabeu (Oscar J Barroso/Europa Press via Getty Images)
Yamal was a crucial part of Hansi Flick’s remarkable transformation at Barca over 2024-2025, taking a team that finished on its haunches under Xavi to a domestic treble in a style that was very often electrifying. There’s certainly no other word to describe Yamal’s individual showing in the Champions League semi-finals against Inter.
In the first leg in Barcelona, he carried the team on his back in what was, incredibly, his 100th appearance for the club, scoring a wondergoal in an enchanting comeback. In Milan for the second leg, all the newspapers had him on the front page, but in the end, the Italians prevailed.
Shortly after defeat, Yamal posted an image on his social media accounts with the message: “I will keep my promise and bring it (the Champions League) to Barcelona. We will not stop until we achieve it.”
It was a message befitting what he had become. At 17, he was the star of the team. And people started to say those words: Ballon d’Or.
In the end, Ousmane Dembele won the prize in Paris this September. Yamal was second — but time is on his side.
The real Lamine Yamal
But we do need to talk about Lionel Messi (and a bit about Neymar).
Many people compare Yamal to Messi, and I can understand why. In terms of their football, both have something special that makes them seem like ‘the chosen one’, and both have been, or in Yamal’s case seem likely to be, decisive for Barcelona for a long time.
But Yamal grew up in the ‘MSN’ era, when Barca had Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar up front, and I think that shows. For me, he’s a mix between Messi and Neymar. Barca is dependent on him, and the team revolves around him, just like it did with the Argentine. He makes the difficult look easy, like Messi, but he also has Neymar’s playful side. The dribbling, the desire to enjoy football and have fun.
We are seeing more of that in his personality, too. His hairstyles, his clothes, the confidence to show who he is. He is enjoying himself and his youth, but he is working hard as well, as Spain manager Luis de la Fuente has said, protecting him from those who seek to find fault.
This season saw another remarkable Yamal statistic. Barcelona’s 6-0 victory over Valencia on September 14 was the first time they had won a La Liga match without him in the Flick era. He only missed three league games last term, but it’s still dizzying how naturally we’ve accepted that one of the biggest teams in Europe is now in the hands of a boy who has only just come of age.
But at the same time, it just seems the most logical thing in the world.
