FC Barcelona 15-year-old Prodigy Set To Smash Youngest Player Record With First Team Debut Against Girona

FC Barcelona prodigy Lamine Yamal is set to break the club’s youngest appearance maker
maker
record by possibly debuting with Xavi Hernandez’s first team against Girona on Monday, according to multiple reports.

Lamine Yamal, who was born to a Moroccan father and Equatorial Guinean mother in the eastern suburb of Mataro on July 13, 2007, has been on Barca’s books since he was five.

This season, he has featured for the Juvenil A U19 team and has been personally picked by Xavi to train with the senior squad at frequent intervals since last September.

After training with Xavi’s La Liga leaders for the last couple of days, it has been reported by Esport3 in Catalonia and AS in the mainland capital Madrid that Yamal could make the head coach’s list for Monday’s match against Girona in the Spanish top flight.

With Barca set to go 15 points clear with a win because of bitter rivals Real Madrid’s 3-2 loss against Villarreal on Saturday night, Xavi can afford to experiment and give the likes of Lamal and midfielder Pablo Torre valuable playing time.

Even if Lamal runs on for a few minutes at the end at Camp Nou, he would immediately smash Barca’s record for the youngest ever appearance maker.

At present, Armand Martinez Sagi has held the record for the Catalans since April 2, 1922 when he made his debut aged 15 years, 11 months and 05 days.

To look for the most recent record holder in Spain’s premier championship, however, we need only look as far back as June 24, 2020 when “Mexican Messi” Luka Romero, who has since moved on to Lazio, debuted for Mallorca aged 15 years and 219 days.

As Lamal will be aged 15 years and 271 days if he dons Blagurana in a professional capacity on Easter Monday, however, he would take third place in La Liga’s all time rankings in this respect.

When Romero starred for Mallorca for the first time, he took the record from Francisco Bao Rodriguez, who was 15 years and 255 days old when debuted for Celta Vigo in 1939.

Even the mere notion of Lamal training with the first time shows how highly he is thought of at the club, with Joan Laporta desperate to get the youngster to agree a new contract with a €1 billion ($1.09 billion) release clause according to El Nacional.

Lamal, who has already had disciplinary problems while on international duty for Spain, will want to make sure his career does not follow the same trajectory as the last player to feature at a similarly young age and also be tied down to a new deal with such a lofty figure attached to it.

Ansu Fati was selected by Ernesto Valverde for a 5-2 win against Real Betis on August 25, 2019 aged 16 years, nine months and 25 days and went on to smash a number of youngest goalscorer records.

Fast forward to 2023, however, and the winger given Lionel Messi’s number ’10’ shirt could be on his way out of the club this summer if an offer comes in for him from the Premier
PINC
League.