The Lionel Messi comparisons have followed Yamal from the moment he burst onto the scene, and they’ve often been unhelpful. Why burden a teenager with the legacy of the greatest of all time? Yet with every passing year of Yamal’s fledgling career, Messi as a reference point becomes increasingly unavoidable.
Messi was (obviously) brilliant before Pep Guardiola’s arrival at Barcelona in the summer of 2008.
The Argentinian had already lifted the Champions League trophy, had won multiple league titles and finished runner-up on the Ballon d’Or podium that year – coming second to Cristiano Ronaldo would help set the stage for a rivalry that would define the next 15 or so years.
The talent was unmistakable. It was clear from the manner in which Chelsea’s Asier del Horno resorted to kicking Messi out of a Champions League game when he was still a teenager.
You only had to watch him in La Liga, or hear Ronaldinho talk about him, to realize this was something different. A freakish prodigy, spoken about in the same breath as Ronaldo Nazario and Diego Maradona.
Messi was getting better with every season, notching 13 goals and 16 assists for a flawed, third-place and trophyless Barcelona side in 2007-08.
Then came Guardiola. In 2008-09, Messi took the biggest leap of his career, transforming into an unstoppable force of nature and arguably the best footballer we’d ever seen. He was the undisputed star of a Barcelona side that swept to the treble.
“Messi is the best player in the world by a distance, he’s the No.1,” Xavi Hernandez said ahead of the 2009 Champions League final.
“There is nobody at all like him. I don’t want to compare him to anyone because it’ll just damage the other player if I do. For me Messi is easily the best.
“All due respect to Ronaldo and all the other great players on the world stage, but Messi is proving that he is better than everyone else.
“The world can see that he’s the boss. I’ve never seen anything like it. In a game, in the training sessions, never. I wouldn’t swap him for any player.”
Yamal is a few years ahead of where Messi was at the same age, but he looks to be approaching that same inflection point.
Not only is the La Masia wonderkid younger, but these early breakthrough years are arguably even more eye-catching than Messi’s were. He’s already won a European Championship and World Cup, and played a starring role in back-to-back La Liga title triumphs.
Rewatch his performance against Inter in the Champions League semi-finals, when he was only 17, and you’re struck with the same sense of otherworldly awe as Messi when he scored his first career hat-trick against Real Madrid. He’s already finished runner-up in the Ballon d’Or, and you’re once again left with a feeling of inevitability.
“He has the quality to win the Ballon d’Or. The question is when he will win it,” Feyenoord manager Giovanni Van Bronckhorst told reporters ahead of Yamal’s Champions League masterclass.
