Yamal’s genius in his own words, Mascherano slams Messi’s Inter Miami after huge loss

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Hello! Lamine Yamal doesn’t want us to compare him to Lionel Messi. I’ll level with him — we’re struggling.

On the way:

🧑🏾‍🏫 Yamal’s Euro masterclass

⬇️ Miami and Messi bomb out

📝 Man City’s transfer wishlist

🫙 Playing with glass in your foot

Coming of age: Yamal, 17, goes up (another) gear to haul Barca back into match

Lamine Yamal is far beyond the stage of breakout matches. He’s a century of games into his Barcelona career — a 17-year-old with 100 appearances for one of the biggest clubs going — and he’s something like a phenomenon.

But something happened in Spain last night. Yamal found a new gear (as if he wasn’t breaking the speed limit already). We’ve seen him ooze genius but his influence in a 3-3 draw between Barca and Inter was next level. He doesn’t want anybody calling him the second coming of Lionel Messi but, honestly, the cap fits. It’s a performance which validates him as the future star of his generation.

Yamal’s finest showing to date coincided with the best Champions League tie in years, a wild semi-final first leg in which Inter led 2-0 and 3-2. In the mayhem, Yamal stole the show, keeping his head while others were losing theirs, and pulling Barca’s strings like a puppet master.

Age is no barrier to him because even at the sharpest end of the most pressurised tournaments, he’s impossible to rattle. He’s the kid who passed school exams while winning Euro 2024 with Spain; who took on his first press conference before the Inter tie and captivated a room packed with more than 100 journalists.

We’re going to revisit a few of his quotes now — because everything he said he duly backed up, on a night which might be his true coming of age.

Walk the talk

🗣️ “I don’t want to compare myself with anyone, and even less with Messi. I leave that to all of you. I look up to him as the best footballer ever but I don’t do the comparison.”

There’s no getting away from it: any hot kid at Camp Nou is going to be held up against Messi. But in truth, Yamal doesn’t look like he’s fighting a ghost. His talent is comparable to Messi’s, absolutely, and watching him drive Barca last night, there was no getting away from the thought of how Messi used to do the same. But Yamal seems comfortable in his own skin, and happy being his own man.

🗣️ “Fear while playing the game? I left all my fears in the park of my neighbourhood, back in Mataro, a while ago.”

There was a great quote from Yamal with Barca’s in-house media after last weekend’s Copa del Rey final win over Real Madrid. “It didn’t matter if we conceded one goal or even two,” he said, “because this season they (Real) can’t beat us.” Footballers talk about playing without fear. For many, the cliche runs thin when the heat is on. Yamal is scarily nerveless — as if the higher the stakes, the more he revels in them.

🗣️ “While I keep winning, they can’t say much. When they beat me, they will be able to.”

This was a response to suggestions — based on his Copa del Rey remarks — that Yamal might be getting too big for his boots, but he’s cashing the cheques written by his mouth. His goal for Barca yesterday (first GIF, above) was art, finished with a short backswing which brought Messi to mind again. Two other bits of skill — one ending in a shot against the crossbar, the other leaving two Inter players for dead (second GIF) — took the proverbial. It’s only arrogance if Yamal can’t deliver on it.

The funny thing? He’s going to have to deliver again because at 3-3, Inter are bang in this tie and possibly the happier of the two teams. They’ve got home advantage in the second leg. They’re good enough to edge it. And they know exactly who they have to stop.

‘Not Good Enough’: Mascherano slams Messi’s Miami after 5-1 loss to Whitecaps

(Photo: Michael Pimentel/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Over in actual Messi land, Inter Miami were counting on a Lionel special. They didn’t get it and they’re out of the Concacaf Champions Cup, with egos bruised and tails between legs.

Far from fighting back from 2-0 down, they were battered 5-1 on aggregate by Vancouver Whitecaps, a team on a hot streak who are surprising MLS (and, I suspect, themselves) this year. A semi-final which should have been Miami’s to win turned into a cakewalk for the Canadians.

Javier Mascherano, Miami’s head coach, was furious. Two Vancouver goals early in the second half —  from striker Brian White (above) and Pedro Vite — killed the contest stone dead after Jordi Alba’s early finish breathed some life into it. “That’s just not acceptable,” Mascherano said. “I could maybe understand a lapse 15 minutes from the end but not at the start of the second half. That’s just not good enough.”

The same could be said of Miami during much of Messi’s time with them: not quite good enough. Close but no cigar. In terms of significant honours, we’re still talking about that solitary Leagues Cup in 2023 but the Champions Cup is North American club football’s biggest prize and like the MLS Cup in 2024, it’s slipped tamely through their fingers. This isn’t how Messi used to roll.

News round-up

• Chelsea are champions of the Women’s Super League for the sixth time running. It’s a first English title for head coach Sonia Bompastor, and it was never in doubt.
• Chilean side Colo-Colo have been punished with a 10-game supporter ban after the death of two teenage fans before a Copa Libertadores match last month. The victims were 18 and 13.
• Evangelos Marinakis is stepping away from his involvement with Nottingham Forest. He also owns Olympiacos in Greece and UEFA rules forbid him from running both if they’re in the same competition. It’s possible that Forest and Olympiacos will make next season’s Europa League.
• An unnamed women’s player in Mexico has been banned for six years following an investigation into alleged match-fixing. All we know is that she’s on the books of top-flight side Mazatlan FC.
• Li Tie, the former Everton midfielder who went on to coach China’s national team, will serve a 20-year prison sentence for corruption after failing with an appeal against his conviction.
• Julen Lopetegui is back in football four months after being sacked by West Ham United. Qatar have named him as their head coach.
• Tom Brady’s Birmingham City have set a new EFL points record, hitting 108 in League One with a game still to go. The previous record of 106 was set by Reading in the Championship in 2005-06.

City Boys To Spend: Guardiola targeting goalkeeper, centre-back and creative midfielder

If our Premier League predictions for next season were anything to go by, the title race will be wide open. There was virtually no consensus. Jordan Campbell, with an entirely straight face, plumped for Newcastle United.

Some of our scribes think Manchester City will come rampaging back and after their £183m ($244m) outlay on transfers in January, Sam Lee has served up details about what to expect at the Etihad over the summer, beyond the return to full fitness of Rodri and Erling Haaland:

• A new goalkeeper, centre-back and creative midfielder appear to be paramount. No surprise, then, that Ederson and Bernardo Silva might be waving goodbye.
• The pieces are being put in place to sign Morgan Gibbs-White from Nottingham Forest. City also fancy Bayer Levekusen’s Florian Wirtz, and shedding the £400,000-a-week wage paid to Kevin De Bruyne would help to make Wirtz affordable.
• Sam informs us that Ilkay Gundogan is set to stay on, with City activating an option to extend his contract by one year.

To sum up, Pep Guardiola is going to be busy. So are we.

Around TAFC

(Photo: Pedro Loureiro/Sports Press Photo/Getty Images)

Catch a match

(Selected games, times ET/UK)

Europa League semi-finals first leg: Athletic Club vs Manchester United, 3pm/8pm — Paramount+/TNT Sports; Tottenham Hotspur vs Bodo/Glimt, 3pm/8pm — 2.30pm/7.30pm — CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports.

Premier League: Nottingham Forest vs Brentford, 2.30pm/7.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports.

Conference League semi-finals first leg: Djurgarden vs Chelsea, 3pm/8pm; Real Betis vs Fiorentina, 3pm/8pm — both Paramount+/TNT Sports.

And finally…

Front-of-shirt sponsors are a route to big money. Manchester United’s contract with U.S. tech firm Qualcomm is worth $75m a year. So how and why have Chelsea been without a sponsor for parts of this season and last?

The fact is, they have — but yesterday they announced a new front-of-shirt partnership with Dubai-based DAMAC Properties. Problem solved? Er, no, because the arrangement only covers the remainder of the Premier League and Conference League schedules, so a grand total of seven matches. It doesn’t even stretch to this summer’s Club World Cup.

Like me, you must be thinking ‘why bother?’ Chelsea say that in the background, a competitive process to find a long-term sponsor is continuing. I’d love to know what they’re looking for. And what it is that’s dragging the hunt out.

(Photo: Michael Regan – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

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