Cruyff helped to make that possible, with the son of Barca icon Johan working with Yamal and his family when filling a sporting director post at Camp Nou. He knew that the Catalan giants had the hottest of prospects on their hands.
Fending off rival interest was not easy, with Jordi telling SPORT: "There was a risk that Lamine would leave Barca. We postponed his debut until we had the feeling that we were covered. He is exceptional. To take care of him, there is already the club. I’m not inside anymore."
Cruyff has previously told Movistar Plus of delaying Yamal’s senior debut, which could have been made even earlier if those monitoring his progress in training had got their way: "The first time he went to train [with the first team], after five minutes the coach, who was Xavi, looked at us and said 'this is special'. I wanted to give him his debut sooner, but we didn't have a contract with the boy so we had to first make sure that he was going to be ours for many years. Even the veterans saw that he was something different, very difficult to find."
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