Spain and Barcelona star Lamine Yamal said he has modeled some aspects of his game after the likes of Lionel Messi and Luka Modric, specifically singling out their “clever” passing ability as the aspects of their game he’s taken the most inspiration from.
The 18-year-old Yamal is known for his passing ability, something that he said naturally suits his style because he has always had strong vision on the field – and because he was not known for his dribbling ability when he was younger.
“The funny thing about all this is that as a little kid, I wasn’t much of a dribbler,” Yamal said in a recent interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “I mean, I’ve never been the kind of kid you’d see dribbling a lot or getting past my opponents. I ran a lot, I scored a lot of goals but above all, I’ve always had pretty good vision of the game and since I was a little kid.
“I don’t know, watching Messi especially, he made different passes because I’ve seen a lot of players who are very good at passing who made long passes but Messi made passes that were almost a goal and I would learn from that. I’ve seen [Luka] Modric make passes with the outside of the foot. Those are things I really liked and found more interesting than dribbling because they’re somewhat more clever.”
Yamal is also renowned for his goalscoring ability, currently standing at 37 goals in 144 games for club and country in his short career. The 18-year-old said there are four goals that stick out in his mind as favorites but he singled out two, the first being his goal in Spain’s 2-1 win over France in the semifinals of Euro 2024, a tournament his side went on to win.
The second was just this month in Barcelona’s 3-3 win at Club Brugge in the UEFA Champions League, a stellar strike taken with the inside of his foot.
“If I had to choose only one, I think in terms of importance and beauty, it’d be the goal against France at the Euros and I also really like the one against Brugge.”
