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News
- 17 hours ago
The signing Barcelona need to SAVE Lamine Yamal's career
Analysis
Lamine Yamal is one of the best young players in the world at just 17 years-old.
Lamine Yamal put on a superhuman show during his 100th game for Barcelona, which just so happened to be a 3-3 draw with Inter Milan in the Champions League semi-final first-leg.
Current ETV
Lamine Yamal
M, AM (R)
Lamine Yamal
M, AM (R)
Barcelona
ETV Range
€155.9M - €190.5M
With Barcelona 0-2 down and facing elimination, Lamine Yamal put the Blaugrana on his back. He scored one world-class goal, a barely believable piece of genius from anyone let alone a teenager. Minutes later he then produced an even better move and shot only to see the ball hit the bar.
Lamine Yamal was so dominant with his dribbling, crossing and cutbacks that Inter started triple-teaming the teenager to slow him down, and still they couldn't stop him. He struck the woodwork for a second time in stoppage time with an impossibly deft chip and Inter thanked their lucky stars the match was over.
READ MORE: Is Lamine Yamal the best 17 year-old in football history?
Playing that well against an opponent that good would be impressive enough, but do that while making your 100th appearance? At the age of 17?
Downright miraculous.
But also worrying.
Lamine Yamal is playing too much football
Not the performance part, to be sure. But the 100th game part.
To have played 100 professional top flight games at the age of 17 is absurd. Lamine Yamal was a starting winger for Barcelona basically all of last season as a 16 year-old, and now all of this season as a 17 year-old.
And in fact he's played more than 100 top-flight games because in between those seasons instead of a normal summer break he went and played for Spain at Euro 2024.
Lamine Yamal has 19 caps for Spain which means that now, two months shy of his 18th birthday, the winger has played 119 times for club and country.
Last season Lamine Yamal played 2,957 minutes for Barcelona. This season he's just crossed the 4,000 minute mark, clocking up 4,021 minutes in total.
Add in the 1,304 minutes he's put in for Spain across his 19 caps? After just two seasons of football Lamine Yamal has played roughly 8,282 minutes for club and country.
READ MORE: The INSANE Raphinha transfer that Rio Ferdinand doesn't know about
That is so, so much football for a 17 year-old.
Barcelona will be desperate to avoid burnout or serious injury brought about from playing him too much.
But right now they need him to start every single game of significance, not just because he's that good but because they don't have a back-up anywhere near his quality.
Barcelona need wingers
Barcelona have gone through the whole season with just Lamine Yamal and Raphinha as starter-level wingers. And they've been magnificent, but they've honestly just had to be.
Ferran Torres is middling as a winger and has only performed this season as a striker, while Ansu Fati is a winger but looks a shadow of himself physically.
Fermin Lopez has perhaps been the best alternative out wide for Barcelona and he is quite obviously not a winger.
There's a cohort of teenagers coming through La Masia, a handful of super talented 17-19 year olds, but only one of those is a winger - Dani Rodriguez. And he appears to have a proclivity for hamstring injuries, so will need to be eased into life in the first-team.
All of this to say; going forward Barcelona need to sign a starter-level winger.
They simply must sign someone that can be trusted in all manner of games, and not just for their competitive sporting level. No. They need another winger so they can give their young prodigy a rest from time to time.
Because a 17 year-old should not be playing over 4,000 minutes in a single season.
Wingers that Barcelona can sign
Who could Barcelona sign to provide this cover?
Nico Williams stands out as the obvious name, as the Basque winger is friends with half the Barcelona squad and was linked heavily withthe Blaugrana last summer.
But Williams has a big release clause, big wages and a big reputation that maybe would put him outside of Barcelona's price range for this summer (given they have failed to move back into Camp Nou as they had planned, depriving them of lots of matchday revenue).
So who else could Barcelona target?
What they need is someone who can dribble, so that when Lamine Yamal goes out they don't lose that penetration.
Dodi Lukebakio of Sevilla is a proven winger who could be a useful back-up. The Belgian has 81 successful take-ons in La Liga this season, placing him second in the division and fourth across all of Europe's top five leagues (Lamine Yamal tops that list with 131 successful take-ons).
At 27 years-old and with a release clause of €45 million, Lukebakio would certainly be more attainable than Nico Williams.
Alberto Moleiro of Las Palmas could be an interesting option. The 21 year-old winger has 55 completed take-ons and operates as either a left-winger or attacking midfielder.
Current ETV
Alberto Moleiro
M, AM (L)
Las Palmas
Alberto Moleiro
M, AM (L)
Las Palmas
ETV Range
€20.5M - €25.1M
Moleiro would gel well at Barcelona, hailing from the same academy that birthed Pedri. The only issue is that his release clause is €60 million.
There's also Monaco's 23 year-old winger Maghnes Akliouche (45 successful take-ons).
Dilane Bakwa, the 22 year-old winger from Strasborugh (44 successful take-ons).
Or Raul Moro from Valladolid, who was born near Barcelona and even spent a year at La Masia when he was younger.
The 22 year-old Spaniard (51 successful take-ons) has a release clause around €10 million or less and, given Valladolid have been relegated, could probably be signed for even less.
What's more, Raul Moro is blazingly quick and can play on either flank, making him kind of an ideal back-up for the likes of Lamine Yamal and Raphinha.
There are more names as well, but whoeever it is, Barcelona simply must sign another starter-level winger if they are to save Lamine Yamal from the same kind of fate that befell the likes of Michael Owen and Ansu Fati.
