Lionel Messi appeared on the YouTube channel “Simplemente Futbol”, and gave his initial assessment of the career and the explosion of young talent Lamine Yamal, his junior at La Masia and Barca. He admitted: “Yamal has incredible qualities and is one of the best players in the world”.
At 37 and the most decorated footballer in the history of football, Messi is fully qualified to talk about a talent that came from La Masia, as he did, and is now developing rapidly in the first team. A prominent name, and along with other icons of world football, a current idol for children.
“Children watch and imitate everything, they know all the talented players and learn from them. Right now, young people are talking about current stars like Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius, Erling Haaland and Lamine Yamal. Especially Yamal, who is very young but is very good, incredibly good,” Messi concluded.
Given his performances and importance at Barca, it is no surprise that Lamine has been compared to Messi. A comparison between Barca’s current No. 19 and the legendary No. 10. “I am very impressed with what Yamal is doing and what he has done. Yamal won the EURO 2024 with Spain,” Messi concluded.
At the same time, Messi also predicted a bright future: “Yamal is only 17 years old, is developing very quickly and contributes a lot to his teams, just like I did. He has incredible qualities, maybe more than me”.
As Messi commented, Yamal is a player who is considered to come from another galaxy because of his outstanding talent since his teenage years. It can be said that Yamal’s success came earlier and at a higher level than Messi when comparing these two players at the same age.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Yamal is also leading the ranking of the most valuable players in the Champions League semi-finals. In the list of the Top 10 most valuable players according to the International Football Observatory (CIES), Barca contributed 3 players. In 5th place is Paul Cubarsi with a price of 103.7 million euros.
In third place is Pedri with a price of 125.5 million euros. Yamal is in first place with a price of 194.9 million euros. This figure is almost double the price of Cubarsi and 70 million euros more than the second most expensive player, Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka.
