Lamine Yamal is the best player in Spain, and Barcelona face a dilemma because of it

These two issues may each be true — even when they actually should not be:

1) Lamine Yamal is the best player in LaLiga.

2) Lamine Yamal is 18 years previous.

This is not information to anybody, on condition that Yamal completed second in Ballon d’Or voting simply final yr. And as his father told us, his son not profitable the award was “the biggest moral damage done to a human being.”

This was unsuitable because, uh, [frantically waves arms in a way that signifies the entire multi-millennium sweep of humanity’s transgressions against one another]. But it was additionally unsuitable because Yamal simply wasn’t the best player in the world final yr. He registered fewer targets+assists than the likes of Ollie Watkins, Yoane Wissa, and Tim Kleindienst. Mohamed Salah put up 47 targets+assists; Yamal had 22.

Just as a basic rule of thumb: If you are an attacker, and another person who performs the identical place as you greater than doubles your quantity of targets+assists, then you definately’re not the best player in the world.

This season, although, Yamal reached a new degree. It will not be a ethical atrocity if he would not win a recognition contest like the Ballon d’Or, however he actually has a case for it. He has put up 27 targets+assists, and on a per-90 foundation, he is averaging 0.95 non-penalty targets+assists — the best charge in LaLiga.

But then, of course, he got hurt. He tore his hamstring on April 22, and now it’s a race in opposition to time for his physique to be again for Spain‘s opening match at the World Cup.

All of which brings us to the conundrum that comes with a player so good, so early in his profession. Lamine Yamal actually is one of the best gamers in the world. And Barcelona harbor annual aspirations of being the best soccer staff in the world — the extra they play Lamine Yamal, the higher they are going to be.

Being 18 and being one of the best gamers in the world makes you one-of-one — we have by no means seen somebody do that earlier than. But with the quantity of video games on the skilled schedule seemingly rising yearly, being 18 and being one of the best gamers in the world additionally means you are extra possible than anybody else to ultimately get damage.

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Why Yamal is the subsequent Messi or Neymar

Let’s neglect about his age for a minute — or simply maintain it in the again of our minds as we evaluate Yamal to everybody else who has performed skilled soccer at the highest degree over the previous decade.

If you have watched a Barcelona recreation over the previous two years, then you know the way it goes. There’s all the urgent and the excessive line and Pedri’s passing and Robert Lewandowski‘s motion and no matter — however the whole lot goes by Yamal. He’s not a teenager benefitting from enjoying with a bunch of different superstars who create house for him. Nope, he is the one creating the house and the alternatives for everybody else.

Just take a take a look at this heatmap for all of Barcelona’s touches in LaLiga to date this season:

You’ll see far more yellow and orange on the proper aspect, and then you definately’ll see that cluster of touches inside the attacking field that do not exist over on the left. Yamal will get on the ball deep, and he will get on the ball inside the field.

He leads all gamers in LaLiga, by a huge margin, for passes accomplished into the penalty space, however then he is additionally second, between Real Madrid‘s Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé, for the quantity of touches he is taken inside the field.

This is the type of player who has dominated fashionable soccer: the high-usage winger. They’re in a position to get on the ball far more usually than heart forwards because they’re deeper on the discipline. And they’re capable of finding house extra simply than attacking midfielders because they’re out huge.

But the best ones nonetheless handle to attain as usually as the best strikers and create as many probabilities as the best No. 10s. So, you could have gamers that resolve video games in the most harmful space of the discipline however who’re additionally the ones who get the ball into these areas in the first place.

The main examples of this sort of player are two of Yamal’s predecessors at Barcelona, Neymar and Lionel Messi. And, nicely, we’ve not seen a player do what Yamal is doing since that duo was nonetheless enjoying in Europe.

One approach we are able to suppose of what’s requested of a given player on the attacking finish is by how usually he is the final player in a given possession. They’re basically deciding that no matter they selected to do — try a dangerous cross or take-on, line up a shot — is extra useful than the rest which may come down the line had been the possession allowed to proceed. And Yamal has completed off a possession 427 occasions this season — far more than anybody else in Spain, in a very long time.

Here’s a checklist of the 10 particular person seasons from the previous 10 years throughout Europe’s prime 5 leagues with the highest particular person “usage rates,” or share of possessions the place you had been the final player:

The two Messi seasons are 2019-20 and 2020-21, whereas the one Neymar season with Barcelona was 2016-17. Oh, and the Yamal season is this present yr.

The essential distinction: the youngest both Messi or Neymar had been in any of these seasons was 24, Neymar’s closing yr with Barcelona. Yamal has one other six years earlier than he is the identical age.

The regarding historical past of high-workload youngsters in Europe

When he is on the discipline, Yamal is enjoying an extremely demanding position. The ball goes to him — over and over and over once more — and he is then tasked with making the high-leverage performs that resolve the consequence of a given possession.

The minutes are excessive depth, and man: there are simply so many minutes.

Take a take a look at this chart, which reveals the minutes leaders amongst 18-and-under outfield gamers throughout the Stats Perform database. The video games return to round 2009, and this contains all aggressive minutes, for each membership and nation:

If we solely take a look at home minutes in Europe’s Big Five prime leagues, then the whole lot bunches collectively a bit extra, however it permits us to take a look at a longer stretch of time since FBref’s database goes again to the early Nineteen Nineties. Here’s what that prime 10 appears to be like like:

1) Lamine Yamal, Barcelona: 7,327 minutes
2) Pau Cubarsí, Barcelona: 6,728
3) Eduardo Camavinga, Rennes and Real Madrid: 6,252
4) Wayne Rooney, Everton and Manchester United: 6,226
5) Iker Muniain, Athletic Bilbao: 6,101
6) César Azpilicueta, Osasuna: 5,800
7) Gavi, Barcelona: 5,791
8) Michael Owen, Liverpool: 5,645
9) Javi Martinez, Athletic Bilbao: 5,547
10) Michael Ball, Everton: 5,341

In phrases of how issues went from there for all of these guys? It’s not nice.

Camavinga has missed 50 video games resulting from harm, in line with the website Transfermarkt, since becoming a member of Madrid in 2021. Muniain was the youngest player to attain a objective in LaLiga, however then tore his ACL at 23 and was by no means fairly the identical after that. Gavi was a first-choice player for Barcelona at 16 and 17, however he, too, tore his ACL and nonetheless hasn’t bounced again in the three seasons since it occurred. Owen’s profession excessive for targets and assists got here in his age-17 season. He ruptured his hamstring at 19 and tore his ACL at 26. Martinez tore his ACL at 25 and solely broke the 2,000-minute mark after transferring to Bayern Munich as soon as. And Ball bought his first England cap at age 20 in February of 2001, tore his MCL in December of that very same yr, and by no means performed for England once more.

On the sunnier aspect of projections, Rooney was a stalwart who performed not less than 2,000 minutes in 13 straight Premier League seasons for groups that had been at all times competing in a number of competitions — on prime of at all times beginning for England. Azpilicueta, in the meantime, made his LaLiga debut in 2007 — he spent most of his profession enjoying in the Champions League and Premier League; and he is began 15 video games for Sevilla this season.

If we exclude Cubarsi, who is Yamal’s modern, that is seven gamers who had been derailed by harm and two who had been in a position to carry on conserving on. Add in the proven fact that there are extra video games at this time than ever earlier than, and it actually would not look nice for Yamal’s future.

What ought to Barcelona do?

So a lot of harm evaluation rapidly devolves into pseudoscience, chasing random fluctuations in the human physique and attempting to glean which means from it.

Take Liverpool, for instance. They loved a comparatively wholesome season in Arne Slot’s first yr at the membership, and it was straightforward to seek out causation: they stopped enjoying Jurgen Klopp’s heavy-metal fashion, gamers stopped operating a lot, and gamers stopped getting damage. Then, in Slot’s second season, with the staff enjoying in an much more laid-back approach, everybody began getting damage once more.

We know that two issues, basically, improve harm chance: previous harm and workload. A paper from the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference a few years in the past basically used these elements to foretell the chance of player harm, and then proposed a concept I hadn’t actually thought of earlier than: that harm prevention and workload administration requires long-term planning.

The researchers created a complicated mannequin that checked out the season schedule in advance — figuring out elements like days between matches and opponent problem — and got here up with a squad rotation plan. Such a plan, they argued, might not optimize short-term outcomes, however by rising the chance that your gamers keep wholesome over the complete season, you are usually rising the chance that you just win extra factors at the finish of the season. And should you’re not, you are positively rising the chance that you just win extra factors over the subsequent few seasons.

This, intuitively, checks out. We know that the majority managers are short-term decision-makers with little-to-no job safety. For the most half, they plan for the match in entrance of them and then cope with no matter fallout might happen as they plan for the subsequent match, and on and on. While each match is value three factors, most coaches deal with the subsequent recreation as if it’s extra useful than the recreation in three months.

The examine basically confirmed this, as evaluation of two Premier League seasons discovered that the majority managers opted for what they known as a “greedy” choice. They often opted for gamers who had been out there, however had performed heaps of minutes just lately and had current accidents or lengthy harm histories.

Given the quantity of present Barcelona gamers who’ve proven up on these “minutes played by teenagers” lists, it would appear that the membership is responsible of this, too.

We’ve talked about Yamal, Cubarsi, and Gavi, however there’s additionally Pedri, who performed 2,500 minutes in his debut season with Barca at 17 and has struggled with non-contact accidents ever since. On prime of that, just about each key player for Barcelona has suffered a hamstring harm this season — sometimes thought-about a symptom of overuse. It’s straightforward to attribute that to the extremely aggressive fashion Barcelona play below Hansi Flick, however we won’t know that for certain.

What we do know, although, is that the quantity of video games being performed at the highest degree has reached a level the place almost each outstanding supervisor and player has spoken out about the absurd calls for being placed on their our bodies.

On prime of that, even past Barcelona, we’re seeing an rising reliance on youthful gamers at the highest degree. Before they’d turned 18, Brazilian legends Ronaldo and Ronaldinho had performed fewer mixed minutes than both Vinicius Junior, Endrick, or Estêvão performed by themselves alone. Benjamin Sesko had performed round 16,000 skilled minutes earlier than his twenty second birthday — neither Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Thierry Henry had even reached 11,000 minutes at the identical level in their careers.

“Physically, exposing teenagers to repeated match and training loads designed for fully mature players increases the risk of overuse injuries,” Darren Burgess, director of efficiency with Juventus, wrote for FIFPro’s annual player-workload report. “Growth plates, tendons, and ligaments remain vulnerable during these years, and excessive high-speed running or short recovery windows can lead to long-term structural damage. What might begin as a minor issue — a recurring hamstring strain, a stress fracture — can quickly become a pattern that follows a player throughout their career.”

In a great world, the powers-that-be would not be driving the sport towards a breaking level in order to make much more cash than they already do. But, nicely, welcome to being alive in the yr 2026.

Instead, the coaches and gamers are left to navigate the minefield that is profitable video games with out getting injured — regardless of incentives pushing them to go as arduous as they’ll. Yamal himself desires to play each minute of each recreation — skilled athletes are wired otherwise. And soccer is not like the NBA with its playoff construction — each regular-season draw or loss decreases your probabilities of profitable the title. And managers at the golf equipment who play the most video games appear to have much less job safety than ever earlier than.

Every player’s physique is completely different, of course. And Yamal may find yourself having the ability to play hundreds of minutes yearly till his 30s with out something greater than the handful of accidents each player picks up over the course of a mean profession. But the actuality is that extra video games and prior accidents would improve anybody’s probabilities of getting injured once more. Yamal already had a ton of video games below his belt, and now he is bought his first critical harm, too.

So, in some type, this is the alternative Barcelona will likely be left with subsequent season: Do you wish to get the most out of your 19-year-old famous person? Or do you wish to do what you may to ensure he is nonetheless dominating when he turns 29?