Lamine Yamal turned 18 last month and inherited Lionel Messi’s iconic number 10 jersey. “This is a big step, the start of a road which I hope can be long and full of victories,” he would say, spotting a beige blazer contrasted with blond-dyed locks dancing on his temple.
Like Messi for nearly two decades, Yamal would be the reason the multitudes would stop to watch the La Liga next season. To see him twist and tease, tear best-laid plans of men and mice apart, make the ball swerve and swirl to the back of the net. This could be the era of systems and structures, of function than flair, but Yamal has asserted the still undiminished pull of solo acts, the power to lure the world into the magnetic field of one slender silhouette, confirming the Great Man Theory that the history of the world is the biography of great men.
The weight of the number doesn’t seem to crush him. If he were of a flakier mind, he would have been crushed to pieces long ago. The Messi shadow had tailed since his first step at the La Masia Academy. “Messi did his own path, I’ll do mine,” he said during the shirt function.
FC Barcelona player Lamine Yamal poses with his new jersey after signing a contract extension with the soccer club in Barcelona, northern Spain, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Some, though, worry about his lifestyle. He was spotted with Neymar, the pin-up boy of talent gone astray, he hired dwarf entertainers for his birthday party, raising eyebrows of his faithfuls. Yamal calmly defused it. “If (criticism and praise) does not come from my family, friends, or people I care about, it makes no difference to me. I can’t feel too up with praise nor too down when I’m criticised. Now it’s time to focus on football and enjoy it.”
In the backdrop of all these, the attention around him would only swell. The frenzy would spike, the expectations would soar, the margin for errors become less, and the scrutiny on mistakes would turn withering. Every match, every season, the audience would expect thunder strikes and magic assists. He would feel the squeeze of the defenders even more suffocatingly. Those that deified him would burn him down at the first instance of a fallow patch. He would no longer be viewed as a wunderkind that keeps un-peeling layer after layer of ingenuity, but an infallible celebrity, with little tolerance to slip-ups on and off the turf.
Invariably, rival managers would have already begun sketching plans to lock him up. As has been the theme for the last decade, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid would be the chief plotters of his and Barcelona’s downfall. Both have considerably repaired the squads that fell apart in the final lap of the race last season. At one juncture, just three points separated the top three, before Barcelona sealed the title by four points.
🤩 YAMAL DOING IT ALL TO SCORE BARCELONA’S 2ND GOAL IN SOUTH KOREA ❗️
GLOBAL HOME OF FOOTBALL | Live All Summer Long | https://t.co/i0K4eUtwwb | pic.twitter.com/MASMuek7TI
— DAZN Football (@DAZNFootball) July 31, 2025
Fiercest foes Madrid have acquired former legend Xabi Alonso as the manager. Alonso is a dynamic and progressive manager, aware of the club’s ravenous quest for titles and its ruthless intolerance towards failures. Some of the ageing and familiar faces were given the golden handshake, among them the gladiator in a Rolls Royce, Luka Modric and Lucas Vazquez. Financial strangle restricted the incomers to just four players, but among them are Trent Alexander-Arnold, Spain international centre-back Dean Huijsen, Uruguayan left-back Alvaro Carreras and Argentine playmaker Franco Mastantuono.
The Real threat
The squad at Alonso’s disposal has title-winning credentials. Kylian Mbappe leads the line, and lest one forgets, he was last season’s most prolific goal-scorer (31). In Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Brahim Diaz and Endrick, they have ample firepower to blow out defences. A bigger worry, though, would be guarding their fort, as they shipped 84 goals last season. It is not an indictment of their backline porousness alone, but the press-shyness of Mbappe and Vinicius. How Alonso, a press-master, makes his alpha-forward work harder would have a decisive impact on the trophy-winning ambitions.
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Eyes of doubt would lurk on Mbappe. He was not shy of goals last season, but Real Madrid icons are expected to do more. To wield an aura, to land the big trophies and to score in clutch games. Mbappe, for all his spark, has not shown the force of personality, like Cristiano Ronaldo or Zinedine Zidane. If he emerges from the shadows, the Yamal-Mbappe rivalry could finally take off.
Neighbours Atletico have spent big by their frugal standards and brought nine players, that include two wingers, a forward and a clutch of defenders, for 146 million pounds. Eleven, of them nine starters, have left the club too, suggesting a massive rebuild. But Diego Simeone’s philosophy would remain unshakeable. Solid, at times even rugged, defending would be the essence of Atletico. But they have adequate creative prowess to vie for the title.
This number is his now 🔟💙❤️ pic.twitter.com/vsytponLaY
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) July 16, 2025
Some of the new recruits would catch the eyes of other European powerhouses. Simeone said he had been searching for a defensive midfielder in the Johnny Cardoso mould. The American Cardoso sits alone in front of the back four or functions in a double pivot. He is aggressive in ball retrieval, supremely confident on the ball and consistently nips the opposition counters, besides blessed with an expansive passing range. Spanish winger Alex Baena had 24 assists in his last La Liga seasons with Villarreal.
In comparison, Barcelona, handcuffed by financial regulation watchdogs, handcuffed to splurge in the market. They had to be satisfied with three incomers—goalkeeper Joan Garcia for the injured Marc-André ter Stegen, teenage winger Roony Bardghji and forward Marcus Rashford on a loan deal from Manchester United. They missed out on their most wanted target, winger Nico Williams. But the bottomless pit of La Masia academy trainees keeps overflowing. Pedro “Dro” Fernandez, who impressed in their preseason tour of Japan and South Korea, is the latest.
But the eyes of the world will be on Yamal. The reason the world descends on La Liga.
