There is no NEXT MESSI, THERE IS JUST LAMINE YAMAL

Precocious talents springing to the scene is nothing new in football. We have all heard of that one talent to talk about as the next best thing after fried rice that never went far. The stories of young players who had the world at their feet but were never able to realize their potential abound. Ansu Fati. Freddy Adu. Theo Walcot. Alexandre Pato. It’s a long list of names.

But the world has never seen a talent this good in a long time. Not just the natural ability, but the maturity for a kid his age is phenomenal, even for a football pessimist.

While I’d love to pretend that this kid might be another of those players who flatter to deceive, I’ll be doing the footballing world a truckload of disservice if I did that. Lamine Yamal is special. It is undebatable. You don’t have to like him to see it. He is the new football genius wrapped in black skin.

When the euros started, we all knew what Lamine Yamal was capable of. Many had seen him play for Barcelona under Xavi Hernandez, and there were no doubts that the kid was special. But what many did not know (and this was a major talking point before the start of the euros) was whether Luis Dela Fuente would start the 16-year-old. His talent was never in doubt, but his maturity to handle the pressure at a tournament as big as the Euros was questioned.

Yes, he blamed over 50 matches for Barcelona. But that was a Barcelona team whose expectations for the season dried out fast. And let’s be honest, not many Barcelona fans expected Lamine to be the difference maker. So, it can be argued that he was less pressured in Barcelona than he would have been with La Roja.

He has handled himself exceptionally well, you’ll agree with me.

It’s three assists and a wonder goal for the Barcelona wonderkid, and fans are starting to see just how special he is, even the naysayers can no longer discredit his brilliance.

Football fans all over the world have been thrilled to magic off the boot of the Moroccan-Spanish, eyes wide open with surprise, and mouths gaping with unspeakable happiness. Magic is back. And Lamine Yamal is the genie.

Lamine is the football version of Wembayama. You know he’s a very good player; you’re not just sure how far he can go. You see the heaven-scarping talent, it’s undeniable, but you’re not sure if he can go all the way. You know if he goes as far as he can go, he’ll be one of the greatest that has ever done it, but your expectation is cautious. You need to see more, you tell yourself.

You’re right for being cautious. It’s rare for a golden generation of exceptional footballers to pass on the torch of greatness to another exceptional generation. Usually, we have decades of normalcy before we see another exhilaratingly talented generation. In basketball, after the Jordan era, we had to wait years before we saw another history-changing player like Lebron. Now, we have Victor Wembayama. These transitions aren’t always easy. But football, its ever-listening gods, knew we needed magic, so they sent us Yamal.

Lamine Yamal’s story — his rise from a black kid in a 15-minute drive-to-Barclona town to a world superstar at such a young age — is one only a master storyteller can write. This is the stuff of the gods.

16 years ago, a baby Lamine Yamal was wrapped in the arms of one of the greatest footballers ever, Lionel Messi. 16 years ago, a white-skinned, shy Argentine smiled at a baby Yamal, a photographer ready to click and clack away, camera shutters and blinding light embracing them. Yamal’s mother standing by the side, grinning from ear to ear that MESSI was taking a picture with her son. 16 years ago, nobody would have known that MESSI was anointing the heir to his footballing throne.

Being black in Spain isn’t the hardest thing, yes?

Lies.

Being black in Spain is hard. The racism is subtle when it needs to be, and in-your-face when the perpetrators want to. There is no modus operandi on how to be racist. So, it must have been tough for Lamine’s father, a wiry-looking Moroccan, and his beautiful wife, a black woman from Guinea-Bissau, to sit there, graced by the presence of a young footballer who was starting to etch his name on the stones of football’s greatness, and smile. I imagine their happiness was bolstered by the fact that Barcelona players were in their small town.

It’s 16 years after Messi blessed Lamine Yamal. 16 years later, the man Messi laid his hands on is delivering football fans from the shackles of mechanical, systematic football. Magic is back on our TV screens, and we can’t help but relish it.

Lamine is like your favourite biscuit that you can’t get enough of. You’ve searched the entire neighbourhood for the biscuit but nobody has it. Then one day, a new shop that opened down the street had cartons of that biscuit. What would you do?

Buy as many biscuits as your savings can so you never run out of the biscuit whenever you need it. Lamine Yamal is that scarce favourite biscuit of yours. If you don’t take it now and save as many as possible, you might never see the biscuit again.

Football Magic is a dying art, and players like Yamal remind us that the darkness of system football can be expelled by magic. Yamal gives the football purist hope that we still have shreds of the old days of football heaven, not the dour, tepid, systematic style we are forced to endure.

However, the Lamine sawdust of magic is not the same as Lionel Messi’s. Yamal isn’t the next Messi; he’s the new Yamal.

We have seen and heard many players being called the next MESSI. If you’re fortunate to come from the famed La Masia, then your ‘next MESSI’ Tag is stronger.

But since the days of Borjan Krkić and Giovani Dos Santos, the world has failed to uncover the next Messi.

Maybe it’s time we all stopped searching for the next Messi and started enjoying the new Yamal.

At 16, Messi wasn’t taking the world by storm. He was still an awesome prospect at the La Masia which many people rated highly. At 16, Messi was not starting for Argentina. At 16, Messi wasn’t scoring worldies and carrying the fate of his nation’s senior men’s football team on his back.

Messi is one of the greatest footballers ever, but it is a disservice to Lamine Yamal to compare him to Messi. Not because he is not as good as the god of football, Messi, but because we would be undermining the kid’s special talent, hiding it under Messi’s bushel. We would be saying to Lamine, “You can be great, but not as great as Lionel Messi”.

Am I insinuating that Yamal can be greater than Messi?

Yes, I am.

I am not saying he will, I’m saying the possibilities exist. The talent is there. While Messi was extremely shy, Lamine seemed to have his head atop his neck pretty well. He carries himself with humility and pride, and his decision-making is way above his age and experience.

Some have argued that he’s peaking too early.

Usually, players get to their peak when they’re in the early to mid-20s, but the Spaniard is doing what many greats did at much older ages. He is pulling trees and making books to write his history.

So, while I love Lionel Messi, please don’t compare Yamal to the mercurial Argentine. Allow Yamal to do his thing, and grow into his type of player. We have magic back in football; let’s all enjoy it.