BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — After witnessing from the touchline how Lamine Yamal pushed his Inter Milan lineup to the limit, Simone Inzaghi said talents like the Barcelona teenager come around only once in a half century.
“He’s the kind of talent who is born every 50 years, I had never seen him live and he really impressed me today,” the Inter coach said after Yamal helped Barcelona rally in a scintillating 3-3 draw Wednesday to start their Champions League semifinal series.
“Lamine Yamal caused us so many problems in the last 25 minutes of the first half.”
Barcelona coach Hansi Flick described his 17-year-old player as “a genius" after Yamal put on his latest talent show in his 100th game for the club's senior squad.
“He’s special. I’ve said it before, but he’s a genius,” Flick said. “In the big matches, he shows up, and I think he enjoyed the situation. I’m really happy that this talent, if it only comes every 50 years like Simone said, I’m glad it’s for Barcelona.”
Yamal romping where Messi once did
Yamal dismissed any comparison to Lionel Messi in his first press conference for his club a day before Inter came to town. But his performance recalled the best days of Messi as his teammates fed him passes and let him pick Inter apart from the right flank. Each time he had the ball he was either searching for a teammate in scoring position or dipping his head and dribbling past his marker.
His goal was one for the YouTube compilations.
Inter had a 2-0 lead and the momentum from goals by Marcus Thuram and Denzel Dumfries, and it appeared like they'd left Yamal with nowhere to go in the 24th. But he slipped around one defender, sped past a second, and then, putting the ball on his left foot, he curled a shot past the turning heads of at least two more Inter players. The ball smacked the far post and was cradled in the net.
That goal made Yamal — at 17 years, 291 days — the youngest scorer in a Champions League semifinal.
He went so close to bettering that moments later when he glided past two defenders and sliced a shot from a sliver of an angle off the crossbar.
“This guy is incredible,” Manchester City striker Erling Haaland posted on SnapChat with a screenshot of Yamal’s shot off the bar.
Yamal fed passes to Ferran Torres and Dani Olmo for back-to-back shots that Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer saved before Raphinha took over and headed a ball down for Torres to ram home for 2-2 before halftime.
Dumfries put Inter ahead again before Raphinha ensured the draw with a long-range strike that found the net. But Yamal was disappointed that a final push for a winner came up short.
“The whole world can see what a good footballer he is. He’s a player who shines,” Inter midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan said. “We tried to stop him, but that was so difficult because he’s got great talent. I hope we don’t let him play this much next week.”
Hungry for more
Yamal said he appreciated the praise but just wanted to focus on the next match with a European Cup just two wins away.
“I am happy to have helped the team, and now we need to go for more,” he said. “We knew we could have won the game but now we are just focused on the second leg and going through.”
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Joseph Wilson, The Associated Press
