FC Barcelona qualified for the quarter-finals of the Champions League after defeating Benfica (3-1) with a brace from Raphinha and a moment of genius from Lamine Yamal, thus silencing the rumours of recent weeks about the young Barça academy player’s lack of goals.
The last time he scored was on February 6th against Valencia in the Copa del Rey, but, without a doubt, the wait was worth it to see a star goal like the one he scored against Benfica this Tuesday. He left Tomas Araújo behind, looked for an angle and, from outside the area, he shot a soft curler that went into the top corner.
At 17 years and 241 days, Lamine Yamal is the second youngest goalscorer to score in a knockout tie and, after Tuesday’s game, the youth team player is also the youngest player to score and assist in the same Champions League game. He is undoubtedly a decisive player for Barça and the data reflects this.
The CIES Football Observatory presented a list of the 100 players with the best offensive performance in the world, according to their statistics in three areas of the game: receiving, creation and finishing. The ranking is headed by Frenchman Michael Olise with an average index of 88.5 in these three areas and a maximum value of 99 in chance creation. The Bayern Munich player beats Barcelona’s Spanish Lamine Yamal (87.7) and Bayer Leverkusen’s German Florian Wirtz (85.0) who complete the podium.
In other words, Lamine Yamal is the second player with the best offensive performance index. The Barça youth academy player is above big names such as Vinicius Jr. of Real Madrid (84.2%), Ousmane Dembélé of Paris Saint-Germain (83.6%), Mohamed Salah of Liverpool (81.9%), Kylian Mbappé of Real Madrid (80.7%). Another Barça player also appears on the list: Raphinha is in 19th place with a rating of 79.5% (72.2% in receptions, 81.2% in playmaking and 85.1% in finishing).
The top 10 also includes two Brazilians (Vinícius Júnior and Savinho), two Frenchmen (Ousmane Dembélé and Désiré Doué), one Englishman (Bukayo Saka), one Egyptian (Mohamed Salah) and one Dutchman (Noa Lang).