On Tuesday (14), once again the Champions League was too harsh on Barcelona. The team that played well, created many chances and could have scored more goals was eliminated by the efficiency and pragmatism of Atlético de Madrid, more inclined to take advantage of their moments in clashes and try to reduce their rival’s strengths.
In this game of attack against defense, in which the team in red and white closed in even with six players on the last line, Barça’s hope was in an 18-year-old boy. Lamine Yamal is no longer something new or a surprise. Still a teenager, he is a certainty of good football, fun and panic for his opponents.
In the preview, Lamine was chosen to be the “spokesperson of hope”. He was the one who most believed in a turnaround, the one who tried to infect his fans and teammates. The personality to put one of the most demanding teams in the world on his back in the decisive moments of the season seems inappropriate for his age. It’s more normal for an 18-year-old boy to be anxious and shy about his first few times than to look like a veteran who has already won and lost a thousand battles.
Playing away from home, with a marker that didn’t allow him 30 centimeters to dominate the ball and a defensive system that generated double and double coverage, Lamine didn’t hide from the game. He almost scored after a minute, found the net at 4 and created three more clear chances for his teammates. A fear to be against, a hope to be in favor of, a delight for those who just watch.
Lamine is it. A delight. When someone turns on the TV to watch football, they either support one team or another, or they want to have fun. And this 18-year-old boy is the one who will make people watch football and continue wanting to watch it, for many years to come. The dribbling, the improvisation, the doing what is not expected, which is so difficult for others, but so natural for him.
Some players are able to remind us why we love this sport so much. Haaland looks like a cyborg, a robot that crunches numbers, statistics and adds points for his team, but no one will say that he means more to football than Ronaldinho Gaúcho.
To this day, we want Neymar to return to something similar to what he once was, because he is from that range of players capable of competing, playing well, winning games, but it is also in this type of footballer that our desire for football lives. In fact, Lamine, if he didn’t have it himself, would be Neymar. The movements, the way of dressing, walking, the behavior between mockery, false disinterest and irreverence are inspired by his great Brazilian idol.
Here lies the fear of where the young Spaniard’s world will turn. As much as what’s on the field shines in our eyes and fills our belly hungry for football art, what’s outside the field for an 18-year-old boy is always worrying. A professional since he was 16, Lamine has to give up the pleasures of life, the right to be an erratic teenager and important steps for a human being to have rapid maturity and responsibilities that he didn’t even know were part of the life of a global idol.
I don’t know what will become of this new star. I want him to improve, to evolve even more, but I’m willing to settle for him being “just” that, in exchange for not getting injured or not getting lost off the field.
For those who want to have fun with football, Lamine Yamal should be the guide for the next decade.
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