Lamine Yamal: “It would be a dream to lift the Champions League”

Lamine Yamal was the star of the latest edition of Barcelona’s official club Magazine. The stellar performances of the youth player has been one of the best pieces of news of this season for Barça, who are delighted to see yet another footballer that has emerged from the talent factory. But with Lamine Yamal, things feel different: Xavi gave the player his debut when he was only 15-years-old, on April 29, 2023, and since then he has not stopped growing and breaking records.

“Almost everything I do becomes a record! It’s difficult for me to remember them all, but I do remember some of them,” he says. One is when he scored for the first time with the Barça first team, away against Granada. Of course, the goal that made him happiest was the most recent one, a winner against Mallorca: “it was a dream to score in front of the fans.” Now he hopes to be able to break another record, becoming the youngest player to score in the Champions League. “I hope to fulfil it against PSG,” he says.

‘There will not be another footballer like Messi’

Lamine is grateful to Xavi for trusting him and giving him the opportunity to establish himself in the Barça first team. “He has a huge role. He has been the one who has trusted me. Furthermore, he is giving me a lot of continuity and I am accumulating many minutes.” In many games he has played, Lamine Yamal has been one of Barcelona’s most dangerous players. With this comes a pressure that he takes on naturally; his secret is to focus on playing and not think about anything else. “When you think about it a lot, that’s when the feeling of pressure comes. I try to enjoy playing football, which is the most important thing,” he says.

It is the same naturalness with which he goes up against defenders and inevitably leaves them behind soon after. His dribbling comes “innately” to him although he admits that he looked towards Messi and Neymar as “the footballers I like the most”. Yamal, however, rejects comparisons with the Argentine. “There will not be another footballer like Messi.”

In explaining the reason behind the ‘Baby Barça’ we have seen this season, the forward was keen to highlight the academy, La Masia, where he grew up both as a footballer and person. “It has helped me a lot in all aspects, as a footballer and in my education. La Masia is everything. And now it is being shown that its role is fundamental and has contributed to many of us being in the first team,” he points out. Lamine is delighted to share a dressing room with many young players, all trained at home.

Regarding the objectives of this season for the LaLiga club, he assures that the squad will try to go as far as possible in all competitions and after reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League, he refused to set limits for the highest European competition. “It would be a dream to lift the Champions League. The team is very excited.” As for what he will look like in ten years, his answer couldn’t be clearer. “At Barça and winning many titles.”