Yamal’s unbelievable record-breaking year… will he add one more?

Breaking Pelé’s 66-year-old record. Achieving things that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo could only have dreamed of at their age.

It’s fair to say that Lamine Yamal shook up football last year – and he could be at his best on Sunday.

The youngest person to play in the Euros, score a goal in the Euros and score a goal in the Euros is bidding to become the youngest person to win the Euros when his Spanish national team takes on England in Berlin.

Not only is he breaking these records, but he’s also doing it in style. With one goal and three assists, only teammate Dani Olmo has been involved in more goals at Euro 2024.

It’s not just potential, he already looks like one of the most exciting players in the world.

After scoring the goal of the tournament in the semi-final victory over France, former England striker Gary Lineker said “a star is born”.

So what has Barcelona winger Yamal, who turned 17 on Saturday, achieved so far in his career – and why is it so special?

How rare was the Yamal discovery?

Before turning 17, Yamal played 51 times for Barcelona, ​​scoring seven goals and setting up another seven.

For Spain he made 13 appearances, three goals and six assists.

In comparison, neither Argentina’s Messi nor Portugal’s Ronaldo – the two greatest players of this generation – played a single game for a club or country’s first team when they were 16.

And when we look at the players who are expected to replace Messi and Ronaldo as rivals for the Ballon d’Or – Frenchman Kylian Mbappe and Norwegian Erling Haaland – their statistics at this age also don’t compare to Yamal’s.

Mbappe played four games for Monaco, making one assist before turning 17 – while Haaland played 23 times in Norway for second-division side Bryne and first-division side Molde, scoring once.

Even one of the most famous players who came to prominence at 16, Wayne Rooney, only played 10 times for Everton and scored three goals before reaching 17.

The club records that Yamal broke

Not all of Yamal’s appearances so far have been at the age of 16… because he was 15 when he made his Barcelona debut.

At 15 years and 290 days he became Barcelona’s youngest player in the La Liga era when he replaced Gavi six minutes from time in a 4–0 win over Real Betis on 29 April 2023.

On August 20th, at 16 years and 38 days old, he became the youngest player since 1939 to start a La Liga game when he played in the 2-0 victory over Cádiz.

A week later he became the youngest player to assist a goal in La Liga in the 21st century when he crossed for Gavi to head in the 4-3 victory over Villarreal.

He became the youngest player to start a game in the Champions League, at 16 and 83 days, in the 1-0 victory in Porto, on October 4th.

Four days later he became the youngest goalscorer in La Liga history when he scored in the first half of the 2-2 draw with Granada.

He became the youngest player to play in El Clássico, O youngest player to score a goal in the Champions League, aged 16 years and 153 days in Antwerp, and the youngest player and scorer in the Spanish Super Cup.

Yamal also became the youngest player to score in the Spanish Cup this century, O youngest player to score two goals in a La Liga game, O youngest player in a Champions League knockout game It is quarterfinals.

It’s no news that he is the youngest player to make 50 appearances for Barcelona and the youngest player to play 10 Champions League games.

Even Lamal was unable to equal Armand Martinez Sagi’s records. He was Barcelona’s youngest player and goalscorer, aged 14, in the 1920 Catalan Championship – nine years before Spain had a national league.

Among the few important records he has lost are youngest player in the Champions League (Youssoufa Moukoko was 16 years and 18 days for Borussia Dortmund against Zenit Saint Petersburg in 2020) or La Liga (Luka Romero was 15 years and 219 days for Mallorca against Real Madrid in 2020).

He is yet to score in the Champions League and will not have the chance to break Ansu Fati’s record as youngest goalscorer, aged 17 years and 40 days, for Barcelona against Inter Milan in 2019, in that tournament now.

The Spanish records that Yamal broke

On September 8, 2023, Yamal became Spain’s youngest player and goalscorer in the same game – a 7-1 victory over Georgia in Euro 2024 qualifying.

He was 16 years and 57 days old when he replaced Dani Olmo just before half-time.

That was even before he scored for Barcelona.

Only Martin Odegaard, who was 15 years and 300 days old when he played for Norway in 2014, was younger during a European Championship qualifying match.

In this summer’s finals, Yamal broke almost every record possible – despite doing homework during some of his free time in Germany.

He became the first 16-year-old to play in a men’s Euro when he started the group opener against Croatia.

Yamal set up Dani Carvajal’s goal to make it 3-0 in that game, making him the youngest assistant in Euro history.

In the semi-final against France he became the youngest goalscorer in the history of the European Championship – aged 16 years and 362 days.

In that game he surpassed two of Pelé’s milestones that had existed since 1958 – the youngest player to score at the Euros or the World Cup – and the the youngest to appear in the semi-finals of any of them.

What else can Yamal do this summer?

Now could he become the youngest player to win the Euros?

He could also achieve another peculiar record… becoming the first 16 and 17 year old to score at the Euros.

He turned 17 the day before the final – and the previous youngest Euro goalscorer was Johan Vonlanthen at 18.

In theory, the Spanish Federation could be fined if the game goes into extra time and Yamal is still on the field. The German Youth Employment Protection Act prohibits people under 18 from working beyond 11pm local time.

True, although it seems very unlikely that such action would be taken.

What about ‘that’ photo?

A photo from a charity calendar photo shoot taken at Barcelona’s Camp Nou in 2007 is doing the rounds.

In it, Messi, the 20-year-old Barcelona striker who would go on to become the club’s all-time top scorer, held baby Yamal and helped him take a bath.

The filming took place after Unicef ​​held a raffle in the town of Mataro, where Lamine’s family lived.

Photographer Joan Monfort, a freelancer for the Associated Press, only discovered last week that the baby in the photo was Yamal.

“He [Messi] was leaving the changing room and suddenly found himself in another changing room with a plastic bathtub full of water and a baby inside. It was complicated. He didn’t even know how to hold it at first,” Montfort said.

Yamal already looks like he could become a Barcelona legend – so there’s no pressure on any baby he does a photo shoot with to follow that tradition…