Lamine Yamal withdrew unwell against Porto. Almost no one found out. He left the field, headed to the dressing room and did not appear for the next five minutes. His departure went unnoticed by the public, journalists and a good number of players. Porto didn’t know they were playing against 10 and Barça believed they were playing with 11. Xavi deduced that Lamine would be back soon or he didn’t detect the player’s absence either. It took several minutes to replace it. It was one of those rare cases where football surprises us. That it happened in a match made it more extravagant.
Whatever the reason for the indisposition, from the outside it appeared that Lamine Yamal had reason to feel bad, as if the development of the match had favored the general malaise and then the urgency. Once again, the young Barça phenom felt shunned on the field, not in physical terms, as he dutifully took his place on the right wing, but in the structure of the game. Barça forgot about Lamine Yamal and it is not the first time it has happened. So far, the team pulls more from him when the games get rough. Against Celta, with a two-goal deficit and the end of the match very close, Barça turned to Lamine with the desired frequency. I needed overflow, creativity, to change the pace of the meeting, which was going down the drain. Once again, Lamine lived up to it. Barça turned the game around in eight minutes and the boy’s contribution was essential.
In Porto, Xavi lined him up with the starters. He is concerned about the care of the player, a 16-year-old teenager who is in full development. Lamine has taken the unusual opportunity that football has offered him by the lapel, but football has also taken Lamine by the lapel. It subjects him to fearsome challenges. Any 15- or 16-year-old kid will be terrified if he has many of the world’s best around him and 80,000 people scrutinizing him minute after minute from the stands.
It is not appropriate to establish prognoses about youth phenomena. Football is full of frustrating and sometimes dramatic cases. Yes, it is easy to appreciate the importance of Lamine Yamal at Barça, despite his young age. Therefore, we are facing a player who performs as if he had been in the team all his life, a small miracle that no one knows how long it will last. One, five, ten or 15 years, who knows.
Lamine Yamal plays at his best and does so with an excitement that inspires the team and the fans. If you take away from this emotional factor, you will run the risk of settling or burning out. There are several ways to lose this necessary plus for such a young player: staying on the bench more times than you can count, feeling that the originality of youth weighs against him, suffering an injury that takes him off the corporate route and get bored in the field If any of these problems happen, a project of a great player can transform into a good football player. In Porto, the variant of boredom was detected. Being bored can be half tolerable for an adult. For a youth, no. Teenagers are in and out of the world to enjoy themselves. The ball barely passed through the feet of Lamine Yamal in Do Dragão, as has happened in some of the last League games.
Lamine is where he needs to be, but the team doesn’t see him. It is not a subjective perception. In Porto he raised his arms in despair several times. He asked for passes that never came. Barça looked elsewhere and Lamine’s frustration became so evident that no one was surprised that he became ill. They were giving him a bad life, we don’t really know why: either because of a lack of collective intelligence to find him or because of neglect.
