 "Lamine Yamal: Is he the greatest 17-year-old footballer of all time? Numbers say he's ahead of Messi and Ronaldo")
Is Lamine Yamal the greatest 17-year-old professional footballer since the Brazilian great Pele? The Barcelona winger is often compared to the Blaugrana legend Lionel Messi and for obvious reasons. Messi was also a teenage prodigy and went on to win the Ballon d’Or eight times, putting him in a league of his own.
At Barcelona, Messi won the La Liga title 10 times, with the first one coming at the age of 17 in the 2004-05 season. The 37-year-old Argentine great also won the Champions League four times with the Spanish club.
Yamal: Currently the best teenage footballer
But Yamal is on a different level. He made his debut for Barcelona in 2023 at the age of just 15 and won his first La Liga title in the same season, even though he only played one match that season.
At the age of 16, Yamal was winning big trophies with his national team, Spain, as he led them to the Euro 2024 title while also winning individual awards like UEFA European Championship Young Player of the Tournament and the UEFA European Championship Goal of the Tournament.
The La Masia product showed his class once again on Wednesday as he helped Barcelona secure a 3-3 draw against Inter Milan in the Champions League semi-finals. Yamal scored the first goal for Barcelona, setting the record for the youngest to score in a UCL semi-final. He was the most influential player on the pitch as well as Barcelona did not concede defeat at home.
Incredible goals on the ultimate stage 🤯
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) April 30, 2025
Yamal, Thuram, Dumfries: Who did it best? đź‘Ź@Heineken | #UCLGOTD pic.twitter.com/cIe07jyyFa
Barcelona manager Hansi Flick could not stop praising Yamal after a match-winning display at one of the biggest stages.
“Lamine (Yamal) showed us the way with that incredible goal because it was crucial to score that goal after we were losing by two goals, he played really well,” Barca manager Hansi Flick told Movistar Plus.
“We played with style and we tried to win. Lamine was a very important player for us… In the big games, as he has already shown, he always turns up.”
Inter Milan manager Simone Inzaghi called Yamal a generational talent, saying such players come once every 50 years.
“He is a talent that is born every 50 years, I had never seen him live and today he impressed me.”
Yamal way ahead of Messi and Ronaldo at 17
Once you see his records, you will agree with Inzaghi.
At 17, Yamal has already scored 22 goals and made 33 assists in 100 professional matches. This is way more and impressive than what Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo had achieved at the same age. When Messi was 17, he had only played 9 matches, scoring one goal.
Ronaldo at 17 had 19 appearances, 5 goals and 4 assists.
The numbers don’t lie. At 17, Yamal is better than what Messi and Ronaldo were at the same age.
Pele was a different beast, though, as he won the first of his three World Cup titles at 17 in 1958. Also, setting records for becoming the youngest to win the World Cup and the youngest to score in a World Cup final.
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