Lamine Yamal made his Barcelona debut at the age of 15 against Real Betis.
Indeed, Yamal could have made his debut with the first team earlier if the club had not wanted to hide his special talent to prevent him from being stolen.
The 17-year-old scored his first Champions League goal for Barca on Thursday against Monaco with his trademark move of winning the ball on the right before cutting inside and sending a low left-footed shot into the net from the edge of the area.
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Even in a 2-1 defeat, it was the kind of moment that made the teenager the hottest young footballer in the world.
Barcelona actually had to stop former head coach Xavi from throwing him into the first team even soon because they didn’t want to risk their rivals knowing what a special player he is.
Jordi Cruyff, former sporting director of FC Barcelona, told MoviStar Plus: “I remember the first time he wanted to train, after five minutes Xavi looked at us and said: ‘This is special’.
“I remember we wanted to debut him a little bit earlier and we thought, ‘We don’t have a contract for the boy, so we’re going to make sure he’s ours for many years first.’
“The players, his veteran teammates, when he first touched the ball, everyone had these eyes that said, ‘This is something very different, very hard to find.’”
It was reported this summer that PSG were willing to pay €250 million for Lamine,
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