The phrase "Lamine Yamal continues to make history" has been repeated excessively in recent days, and why wouldn't it? The Spanish-Moroccan forward shows flashes of exciting quality in every match, paving his way to becoming a global star. Moreover, he is proving to be increasingly decisive both with FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team, even breaking some significant records.
In the recent match against AS Monaco (2-1) in the UEFA Champions League, despite the bitter defeat of the Blaugrana team at the home of Monaco, the Rocafonda player can now pride himself on being the second youngest scorer in the history of this prestigious tournament (17 years and 68 days old). He is only surpassed by one of his current teammates at Barcelona: Ansu Fati (17 years and 40 days).
Indeed, if there is something that has marked Lamine Yamal's adventure in his young career, it is achieving great things at a tender age, carving out an excitingly upward trajectory in high-level football. It all began that day when, at 15 years, nine months, and 16 days old, Mataró's own made his official debut in the Barça shirt in a match against Real Betis, where he played his first seven minutes as a Blaugrana.
Xavi Hernández recognized Lamine Yamal's potential and wanted to debut him earlier at Barça
This debut, as mentioned by Jordi Cruyff, former sports director of FC Barcelona, in his recent appearance on 'Movistar', could have happened even earlier than the mentioned date, as the forward had impressed the Barça coaching staff, especially Xavi Hernández. "I remember because the first times he came to train, after five minutes the coach at that time, Xavi, looked at us and said this is special. And I even remember he wanted to debut him a little earlier," he noted.
But... why didn't he?
However, the son of the legendary Blaugrana figure, Johan Cruyff, did not hesitate to expose the unexpected reason why they did not debut Lamine Yamal a bit earlier, despite seeing in him the qualities to enter top-level football. "We didn't have the boy under contract, so we wanted to make sure first that he would be ours for many years," revealed Jordi Cruyff, making it clear that essentially the '19' did not debut earlier at Barça due to contractual issues and the need to protect him from the interest of other teams.
Now, following that line of thought, the Spanish-Dutchman continued to praise the talented right winger, highlighting how from various sectors, witnessing his initial training sessions with the first team, it was perceived that he possessed a special talent, something different. "I remember even the players, his veteran teammates, when he touched the first ball, everyone's eyes widened, saying this is something different, very hard to find," he pointed out.
Jordi Cruyff's call regarding Lamine Yamal's career
Finally, Jordi Cruyff emphasized the importance of being patient with Lamine Yamal's career, despite his promising performances, due to his youth and the room for improvement he still has ahead. "He's a star, but we always have a bit of fear. He's very young, we need to give him time, accept his matches, that sometimes he'll have better and worse moments, sometimes he'll make a wrong decision, although rarely, it's very unusual for his age!" he commented.
“I quite agree that it's not good for anyone to try and label him as the best right now. We all know that in terms of talent and his age, he's the best, but it's better to go steady, keep our feet on the ground, humility, let him keep working, because he's a player with extraordinary talent," he concluded.