Cristiano Ronaldo knew exactly what he was doing back in April 2012. Real Madrid had arrived at the Camp Nou having been beaten 1-3 by Barcelona at the Bernabeu... on top of having seen Barca lift LaLiga thrice consecutively. They wanted to make a statement. He wanted to. So, when Ronaldo rounded Victor Valdes to score what would be the winner at 2-1, he wheeled away before slowing to a walk and asking the whole stadium to 'calm down', declaring that he was here, it was his show. "Calma, calma" he mouthed. Madrid would win the league that season, the first to 100 points in LaLiga history: and it would be the "calma" celebration that would come to define it.
Fast forward 12 (and some) years, and this past Saturday, Lamine Yamal too knew exactly what he was doing. Barcelona came into the clasico having lost both of them last season, having conceded the league to Madrid by a margin and with Kylian Mbappe ready to announce himself to the fixture.
Barca may have a won a league two seasons back, but the past few years have been very much all Real Madrid. They needed a statement performance to show that they're back -- and they got. Already ahead 2-0 at a boisterous Bernabeu, Yamal would underline it in the 77th minute as made it three with a ridiculous finish: taking a touch and then rocketing it into the roof of the net at the near post with his weaker right foot.
But it was what followed that spoke volumes, that would turn an already electrifying performance into the kind of statement that Ronaldo made all those year ago. Wheeling away in celebration, Yamal slowed down to a walk and asked the whole stadium to 'calm down' and declared that he was there, that it was, indeed, his show. He didn't quite mouth it as dramatically as the original, but the meaning was lost on no one. 'Calma', he seemed to say, 'it's now the Lamine Yamal era'.
Do you know who I am?
Lamine Yamal.#LaLigaHighlights pic.twitter.com/xaYpOyrsoO- FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 26, 2024
The audacity to hit that celebration at that stadium, in front of those fans, with the world watching... it's this attitude that -- combined with his otherworldly technical ability -- has made him the youngest ever scorer in a Clasico, and at 17, arguably the most influential player in LaLiga right now. He's certainly Barcelona's lodestar now. Right after the "calma", he would top it all off by dancing the Vinicius Jr. celebratory jig with Alejandro Balde. Past, present, none of it mattered: Yamal wanted the Bernabeu to know that Barcelona were taking over again.
The clasico seemed to be an indication -- early as it may be in the season -- that it might just happen. Hansi Flick's Barcelona won 4-0 and did it with a combination of the things that the great Barca teams of yore always associated themselves with: youth, courage, risk and free-flowing attack. No one epitomised all of that more than young Yamal. As he rubbed it in after the match, you knew the celebration was by design, that this was someone wired to not just perform on the big stage, but completely take it over. "It's a great experience when your own fans are louder than the home team's fans in the opponent's stadium," he said after the match. "It's incredible." Of course it is, Lamine.
And so, for the celebration, for the footballing genius, Lamine Yamal takes our Moment of the Week.