Is Lamine Yamal on the path to destruction?

There is little doubt that Lamine Yamal is a big talent, and he is showing that he can even surpass the legacy of Lionel Messi, but the teenager’s off-field life raises a lot of concern.

At 17, he had already won two league titles, the Spanish Cup, the Spanish Super Cup and Euro 2024 with the Spanish national team.

The attacker does not seem to have any limits, with his goal and assist count at 17, better than those of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same age.

Yamal is clearly a generational talent who could dominate the football landscape for a very long time.

Football fans get lucky once in a while to see purely devastating talent emerge and delight them every time they watch him play.

However, there are other times when there is no clear top talent, but we may never witness that again.

As Ronaldo and Messi wind down their careers in less competitive leagues outside Europe, we had been expecting that the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland and Vinicius Junior would be battling for the awards of the best players in the world.

However, Yamal has emerged, and he will give everyone of them a run for their money every season.

He is being tipped to win the Ballon d’Or this year, but this may not happen due to the achievements of PSG's stars.

However, if Barca had won the Champions League, it would have been really difficult to stop Yamal from being crowned the best player in the world.

The talented U18 monster

Yamal has just turned 18, which means all those fantastic performances that he has been delivering for us to watch came before he turned 18.

The Spaniard is a generational talent, no doubt about that, but he seems to be in a world of his own as a U18 player.

Before 18, Messi had made just nine first-team appearances, scoring a goal. Kylian Mbappe had made 14 first-team appearances and scored a goal, Neymar had made 48 first-team appearances, scoring 14 goals, and C. Ronaldo had made at least 25 appearances, scoring three times.

However, Yamal has already made 106 first-team appearances, scoring at least 25 goals for Barcelona.

He is also the only player on this comparison list who has won trophies at 18, winning two league crowns among others, including with the senior Spanish national team.

As a U18 player, it will take a long time before we find another global superstar who will do what Yamal has done before turning 18.

Read More: What each Spanish club needs to win La Liga this season.

The comparison with Lionel Messi

Since Messi left Barcelona in 2021, fans have been waiting for a new hero to emerge at Camp Nou.

For a short while, we believed that Ansu Fati would be the heir of the Argentine superstar, and Fati was on his way to greatness before injuries began to affect him.

Barca’s willingness to promote players from their academy means they were soon lucky to get a new hero, as Yamal was handed his debut at 15.

He broke several early appearance records at the club and continued to shine as he grew until he is now 18.

Messi was a fine talent in the Barca academy as well, and he won the FIFA U20 World Cup in 2005, just before he turned 18.

The attacker was never exposed to as many minutes as Yamal has gotten before he turned 18.

At the time, clubs prefer to ease their top talents into life by handing them game time as slowly as possible.

We would never know if Messi would have made the same impact as Yamal has if he had been given his debut much earlier.

We also cannot predict if Yamal will meet expectations and be as big as Messi is now, but for the start of their careers, the Spanish prodigy has made a much better start.

The relationship with Neymar

Yamal got in the news for the wrong reason at the end of the season, as the attacker was spotted with an OnlyFans model who is way older than he is.

Days after he denied having a relationship with her after they were spotted on holiday together, the attacker went on holiday with Neymar, and that sent more alarm bells ringing.

Like most Brazilian players who have reached the pinnacle of the game, Neymar is a party animal whose party lifestyle has been widely publicised.

The Santos attacker has been plagued by injuries, but we all know that Neymar could have been more if he was a serious player.

He sold so many PSG tickets, but he failed to deliver the Champions League dream, and we will not forget him always getting injured around his sister’s birthday, which gave him a chance to travel and party.

Neymar is not the best model for Yamal, so it could be that the teenage Spaniard is now on the path to self-destruction.

Yamal needs to emulate more disciplined players like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo if he truly wants to have a great footballing career.

Has Barcelona spoiled Yamal too soon

As arguably their most exciting player and someone who sells many Barcelona tickets nowadays, Yamal makes around €20 million per year at Barca.

His earnings jumped as he signed an extension to his deal this summer, but he was previously on a €1.67 million per year salary.

That was a huge pay for a 17-year-old, and his current earnings put him in the same wage bracket as Robert Lewandowski.

Although Yamal deserves his pay, the money seems to have affected his off-field lifestyle, and he needs to slow things down.

If he retires at the end of this season, he might not need to worry about money again for the rest of his life.

However, he won’t, but he seems to have been spoiled with too much money too soon, and that could turn out to be a curse.

Barca has also exposed him to too much fame too soon because if he had been eased into first-team football, he probably would not have played as many games as he has played now and not have been as popular.

If he enjoys the longevity of Messi, he has 20 more years at the top of the game, would he not get bored and pay more attention to partying before that age?