With Lamine Yamal on the verge of becoming the youngest-ever player to take to the pitch for Spain, Soccer Laduma recently sat down with Spanish football expert Sid Lowe to chat about the wonderkid, whose rise he claims is similar to that of Lionel Messi.
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La Masia has produced a plethora of amazing football talent in its history (thank you, Johan Cruyff) and it does not seem to be slowing down any time soon, if recent evidence is to go by. Yamal is the most recent alumni from the famed institution to captivate the world, with his recent displays having garnered the attention of many of world football's fraternity.
While he may have had the attention of a few when he became the youngest-ever player to play for Barca's first team, it was his performance against Villarreal at the Estadio de la Ceramica earlier this season that made everybody sit up and take notice of the Esplugues de Llobregat native.
Last week, manager Luis de la Fuentas made the bold decision to call the teenager up for Spain's senior national team, and Yamal now stands a chance to become the youngest-ever player to don the famous red of the 2010 FIFA World Cup winners, surpassing his teammate and fellow La Masia graduate Gavi. With Yamal hoping his national team career can get off to as good a start as his club career has, LALIGA aficionado and ESPN and The Guardian journalist Sid Lowe thinks the young star has a very promising future with the Catalan giants.
"The obvious one to talk about is Lamine Yamal at Barcelona, who looks very, very, very exciting," the London native said.
"Very young, so maybe he won't get as many opportunities as we'd like but he looks very exciting.
"I hope he can do what young players often do and that is kind of to play without fear and to have the willingness to run at people because I think he has the chance to be something a little bit different and it would be very nice to see a player who is just different to everybody else."
There has been a lot of talk about how Yamal's Joan Gamper Trophy performance against Tottenham Hotspur was akin to Messi's against Juventus in 2005, when the Argentine received the first of many standing ovations from the Camp Nou faithful, and Lowe insists there are similarities between the Spaniard and the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner.
"Because Messi's first really amazing performance was in the Gamper against Juventus way back in 2005, I think that helps the parallel between the two," he added.
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"I think a lot of people were like, 'Oh, the Gamper. This was where we saw Messi emerge,' but yeah, he [Yamal] was absolutely fantastic against Spurs, so it's quite exciting."
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