Barcelona wonderkid Lamine Yamal might genuinely be the best player at his age in the history of football.
That’s a big shout, but it’s not as wild as you might think when you consider what Yamal has already achieved in his fledgling career, and how rare it is to break through at such a high level so young.
The 17-year-old recently became the youngest player in European football history to reach 100 competitive appearances and he only seems to be getting better.
We’ve broken down Yamal’s case to be the greatest player under the age of 18 in the history of football, taking a closer look at what he’s achieved so far and put that up against six other icons of the game who made their break early on.
Lamine Yamal
So prodigious is his talent, Yamal has broken all kinds of “youngest player ever” records; both Barcelona and Spain’s youngest debutant, having made his bow at 15 years & 291 days and 16 years & 57 days for club and country respectively.
Admittedly he played next to no role in the La Liga winner’s medal he received in 2022-23, but the fact he was training with Xavi’s first team is a testament to his ability.
Yamal’s proper breakthrough season at Barcelona ended trophyless, but that summer he shone for Spain in their Euro 2024 triumph – and was still just 16 when he struck that long-range thunderbolt in the semi-final against France.
He’d just turned 17 by the time he assisted Nico Williams in the final against England.
He’s now established himself as one of Barcelona’s best and most vital players.
He’s starred in two separate thrashings of Real Madrid, is European football’s new dribble king, and is chasing down a treble as a key pillar in Hansi Flick’s transformed Barca.
To date so far, the teenager has notched 20 goals and 26 assists in 92 appearances for Barcelona and four goals and nine assists in 19 matches for Spain. A reminder that he doesn’t turn 18 until June.
Let’s see how the next couple of months play out, but Yamal could achieve things most footballers can only dream of – all before he’s old enough to be served a cerveza.
Kylian Mbappe
You probably remember a fresh-faced, teenage Mbappe bursting onto the scene at Monaco before tearing it up for PSG and winning the World Cup at 19.
The French forward was brilliant when he first broke through, but he might not be quite as young as you remember.
He didn’t make his Les Bleus debut until he was 18, while that birthday came shortly before he announced himself to the world in the Champions League knockout stages as Les Monegasques made it all the way to the semis in 2017-18.
Mbappe was always undoubtedly full of potential. He was Monaco’s youngest-ever first-team debutant, aged 16 years and 347 days, breaking the previous record set by Thierry Henry in 1994.
But he didn’t do that much before turning 18. Four goals and five assists in 21 Ligue 1 appearances is nothing to sniff at, but it pales in comparison to Yamal’s output at the same age.
Lionel Messi
“This award says I’m the best player in the world, but I’m not even the best player at Barcelona,” Ballon d’Or holder Ronaldinho told FourFourTwo in 2005.
“One name I’d watch out for would be Lionel Messi. He’s like my little brother here – he might be from Argentina and I’m from Brazil, but I look after him. He’s going to be excellent.”
No pressure, kid.
That was the year that Messi turned 18. Ask anyone who came up alongside the Argentinian at La Masia in the early 2000s and they’ll regale you with stories of an otherworldly talent that was always destined for greatness. Cesc Fabregas, for example.
We absolutely take Fabregas and Ronaldinho at their word and don’t doubt he was a freakish talent, given everything we’ve seen over the past two decades.
But at the professional level, Messi didn’t actually have a great deal to show for all the hype before his 18th birthday in June 2005.
Messi had only made 10 cameo appearances for Barcelona – notching one goal and zero assists – at that stage of his development, while a first senior Argentina call-up wouldn’t come until later.
Cristiano Ronaldo
A similar story to his era-defining rival.
Those who came up alongside – or played against – a teenage Ronaldo at Sporting will tell you about this force of nature that had the world at his feet.
“I saw how good Ronaldo was that day. He was up against John O’Shea. Sheasy ended up seeing the doctor at half-time because he was actually having dizzy spells,” recalled Roy Keane of the dazzling pre-season appearance that convinced Manchester United to sign him there and then.
But Ronaldo had turned 18 six months before that famous friendly in the summer of 2003. Even then, Ronaldo remained a raw diamond in his early years at Old Trafford – as evidenced by his (now unthinkable) failure to score a single goal in his first 30 Champions League outings.
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner notched five goals and four assists in 20 appearances for Sporting before his 18th birthday. Good – great, even – but not in Yamal’s stratosphere.
An August 7, 2003 file photo shows Portuguese Sporting Lisbon soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo during a soccer match at the new Alvalade stadium against Manchester United.
READ: When Cristiano Ronaldo gave O’Shea ‘a migraine’ in his Man Utd audition
Wayne Rooney
Still the Premier League’s poster boy for outrageously talented wonderkids, Rooney was quite simply brilliant when he broke through as a 16-year-old at Everton.
Rooney’s numbers before turning 18 don’t hold a candle to Yamal’s at Barcelona, but you do have to factor in the difference of quality of team-mates.
It’s something even a 16-year-old Rooney was acutely aware of.
“I grew up watching them, to then go play with them, trained with them every day, and then so quickly I remember thinking… these are crap,” the former England captain reminisced on the senior players at Goodison Park at the time.
You only have to rewatch that iconic match-winner against Arsenal to see this was not a normal 16-year-old. But Yamal’s goal against France was arguably every bit as good, if not better – at the same age, and in a European Championships semi-final, no less.
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Pele
Okay, here’s the obvious one.
As trump cards go, ‘winning the World Cup at age 17’ is Teflon. There’s no beating that.
It’s why Pele will likely remain the all-time standard-bearer stock answer to this question for eternity.
“I have good and bad stories from World Cups. The ’58 World Cup was a dream. I was a kid. Nobody was expecting it. Nobody believed in us. I remember some reporters saying: ‘how can they take a 17-year-old kid to the World Cup finals,” Pele recalled.
“You may be right,” Brazil coach Vicente Feola replied after their psychologist Joao Carvalhaes deemed him ‘too infantile’.
“But you know nothing about football and I’ve seen Pele play.”
France icon Just Fontaine scored 13 goals at that World Cup in Sweden, but he later said: “When I saw Pele play, it made me feel I should hang up my boots.”
Pele’s performances that summer are rightly the stuff of legend, impossible to surpass.
Yamal will turn 19 during the next World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. He won’t have a chance to match that achievement.
But if he can lead Barcelona to a treble this season, you’d have to say that ranks pretty close.
Diego Maradona
“When Diego came to Argentinos Juniors for trials, I was really struck by his talent and couldn’t believe he was only eight years old,” the youth coach who discovered Maradona, Francisco Cornejo, reminisced.
“In fact, we asked him for his ID card so we could check it, but he told us he didn’t have it on him.
“We were sure he was having us on because, although he had the physique of a child, he played like an adult. When we discovered he’d been telling us the truth, we decided to devote ourselves purely to him.”
El Diego didn’t have an achievement as grand or romantic as winning the World Cup at age 17, but read anything about his early years and you’ll hear all about a talent from another planet.
Maradona made his professional debut for Argentinos Juniors 10 days before his 16th birthday. Within a few minutes, he’d already pulled off a nutmeg.
“I was on the right side of the field and went to press him, but he didn’t give me a chance,” recalled his opposite number Juan Domingo Cabrera.
“He made the nutmeg and when I turned around, he was far away from me.”
Figures are sketchy and footage is hard to come by. But as a matter of historical record, Maradona evidently possessed a level of precocious footballing flair that even Yamal struggles to match.