It's getting tiresome now.
Every week, another Lamine Yamal moment that takes your breath away. It's difficult to point the spotlight at other moments across other leagues, when Yamal produces footballing magic with the regularity that he does. It's not even about his age anymore, even if a 30-year-old generational footballer were doing what he does with such regularity, jaws would continue to drop.
And yet, it's hard to ignore his age. Today, Yamal is 17 years and 114 days old -- the same age as Lionel Messi was when he made his senior debut for Barcelona. The Spaniard is already ahead of his Argentinian idol by 82 games and 2 major trophies (Euro 2024, La Liga 2023/24). Now no one's suggesting he's about to eclipse the GOAT, but Yamal is producing things at 17 that perhaps on Pele can claim to better.
Ahead of the derby against local rivals Espanyol, Yamal paraded another trophy in front of the adoring crowd -- the Kopa Trophy he picked up for being the best youngster last year.
Nestled a few feet away in the hands of Aitana Bonmati, was the trophy Yamal truly aspires to -- the Ballon d'Or. And even the teenager himself believes it a realistic goal -- having superstitiously opted to not touch that trophy as Bonmati revealed, because it's one he wants to lift himself one day.
If he continues in the vein, he's started the season in, he might have been right to be superstitious. Do what he did in the 12th minute of the game, and we'll simply have to keep writing about Yamal... and progressively run out of words to describe him.
It's not like Espanyol boss Manolo Gonzalez was unaware -- he'd crowded Yamal's side of the field to start the game. Carlos Romero at left-back and Jofre Carreras as the left-winger would rotate getting tight to the Barcelona teenager, with defensive midfielder Rafel Bauza backing them up by blocking the passing lanes.
Yamal ➡️ Olmo
La dupla española no falla y Barcelona lo gana 1-0. �� pic.twitter.com/tJu3ghbhNh
- ESPN Deportes (@ESPNDeportes) November 3, 2024
And the trio were sticking to the plan when he received the ball on the right touchline, facing away from goal. The ball had been fired into Yamal's feet, as Hector Fort made an overlapping run at right-back for Barcelona. It wasn't a decoy Espanyol's defenders were falling for either -- Romero made an attempt to get tight as Yamal turned and faced towards goal.
A touch to give himself space, and surprisingly Romero and Carreras backed off, opting to block his options. And when Gonzalez reviews the tapes, both Romero and Carreras have a decent case to make, they did everything correctly. Except for one sliver of space.
Dani Olmo had made a run into the box, but realistically it was an optimistic one. Yamal's passing lanes with his instep were blocked and the touch he had taken meant than another one to open up the angle would have resulted in Olmo straying offside.
And like generational players do, the solution was an improvised one. A blur of his foot, and Yamal produced an outrageous trivela. It's one thing to connect with the ball with the outside of his foot -- Yamal placed the perfect curl to thread the ball past Romero, into that small sliver of space from his angle, and evade Leandro Cabrera and Bauza too. What makes Yamal's pass special was also the weight of the pass. Perfect.
Olmo didn't have to break stride -- he stroked the ball into the net, but there was something curious about the sonic journey of this goal. It wasn't a spontaneous eruption that accompanies most goals, the crowd at the Olimpic were already loud before the ball reached Olmo -- 'ooohs' -- when Yamal's pass evaded the mass of Espanyol defenders, and yells of celebration when Olmo provided the finish.
Another Yamal assist. Another Yamal moment. Not tiresome, just beautiful.