Inter Milan forward Marcus Thuram has claimed that there are still two players better than Lamine Yamal after facing the Barcelona wonderkid. Yamal, 17, got the football world talking on Wednesday with a remarkable performance in the two teams’ Champions League semi-final first leg.
Thuram and Yamal both got on the scoresheet, as Barca pegged Inter back twice to earn a 3-3 draw, having found themselves 2-0 down after just 21 minutes. Barcelona’s teenage sensation started his side’s comeback with an excellent curling strike before hitting the crossbar two minutes later.
Yamal also hit the bar in the second half, nearly making it 4-3 to the hosts. The Spain international, who’s already played 100 games at club level and won two trophies this season, received rave reviews for his electric display, with some going as far as to say that he’s now the best player in the world.
But Thuram disagrees. The 27-year-old reckons that both Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele, who he’s team-mates with for France, are better than Yamal.
“The best player in the world is French,” Thuram declared post-match. “And the second best, too. After that, Lamine Yamal… The best players are Dembele and Mbappe.”
His Inter colleagues were full of praise, with centre-back Alessandro Bastoni claiming: “He is amazing, there’s not much to say. It’s unbelievable he’s only 17 years old, unbelievable. The work Barcelona is doing at La Masia is fantastic.”
Boss Simone Inzaghi added: “I haven’t seen a player like Lamine Yamal in the last eight or nine years. We had to put three players on him. Talents like Yamal are born once every 50 years.”
Are Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele better than Lamine Yamal? Have your say in the comments section.
Inzaghi’s kind words were put to Barcelona manager Hansi Flick, who labelled Yamal a ‘genius’. “I’m really happy that this talent that comes every 50 years plays for Barca,” Flick said. “Lamine in the first half was so important for us. He created so many positive things and got the first goal.
“In the big matches, you see the quality of this player and he showed it today. It’s really good to have him. He’s special, he’s a genius. You see all the details and it’s unbelievable how he does this.”
The Barca boss will be hoping for the same kind of performance from Yamal when the teams do battle again in Milan next Tuesday.
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