The inevitable brilliance of Lamine Yamal

Barcelona travelled to Istanbul on Tuesday without Raphinha, their most in-form player and top scorer with 14 goals in eight games this season, and the match against Galatasaray got as dangerous as it could.

The hosts took the lead with their first chance thanks to Aleksey Batrakov, who slammed home a cross from Rafael Leao in the 28th minute. Barcelona duly went into meltdown. Hansi Flick’s side lost their cohesion, started wasting possession and Galatasaray thought they had added a second from a corner, but the VAR disallowed the goal for offside.

Joao Cancelo managed to equalise two minutes before the break, to the relief of Flick on the touchline, but the game was still in a very awkward place for Barca, overwhelmed by a typically intense atmosphere at the Ali Sami Yen Stadium.

It was in that exact moment when Barcelona were reminded that, fortunately, they can always rely on Lamine Yamal.

The 19-year-old went from having a discreet first half, in which Galatasaray’s Mario Lemina had words with him after he claimed a foul, to destroying the opposition in the space of 15 minutes, with Barcelona roaring back to win 4-1.

Yamal celebrates with Fermin Lopez after Barcelona’s second goalYasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images

Yamal felt inevitable with every ball he touched after the interval and was involved in the final three goals Barca scored in Istanbul. It started with a curled cross that caught Galatasaray’s defensive line on the wrong foot, finding Fermin Lopez crashing into the box. The attacking midfielder headed home with ease to score for the fifth time this season.

Three minutes later, Yamal left one of the highlights of this Champions League fixture. He was running at full speed towards the end of the pitch when he started to perform a rabona cross, although instead of kicking the ball, he faked the cross and left the ball untouched — and Eren Elmali unsettled.

Elmali still managed to reposition himself and tried to tackle Yamal, but the Barcelona player got a bit of luck when the ball flicked off his leg, allowing him to dribble past the left-back. From the byline, Yamal only had to make a cutback pass to Anthony Gordon, who sent it to the back of the net. The England international has now scored in each of his past five appearances for club and country.

At this point, the home fans had given up on their side’s hopes of quelling Yamal’s talent, some of them starting to leave the ground — but the teenager had another trick to pull out of his hat. He began another counter-attack and waited for Barca’s offensive substitutes to join him. He switched the ball out to Gabriel Jesus. The former Arsenal striker miscontrolled, but left it at Karim Adeyemi’s feet, who did not hesitate to hit it with his left foot.

It could have been an even more remarkable display had Gordon not wasted a massive chance at 1-1. Yamal was again the creator, sending a ridiculous cross into the box with the outside of his left boot to leave Gordon in front of an open goal, but the 25-year-old misfired.

By the 65th minute, Yamal had turned a potential Turkish nightmare into a showcase of just how much of an attacking force Flick’s men are. The German manager, as expected, could not have been more pleased with his performance.

“Sometimes I can’t even see all the passes he creates, to be honest,” Flick said in his post-match press conference. “When you see Lamine at our training sessions, some of the stuff he does is just the same as you saw here tonight. It is amazing and I am so happy to have a player like him in the team.”

There has been a lot of scrutiny over the handling of Yamal and the usage he gets in games, but Flick has been hesitant to take him off. He completed the full 90 minutes again in Istanbul, despite Barca having a packed schedule ahead with games against Real Betis on Saturday, Paris Saint-Germain next Tuesday and Real Madrid on the following Sunday (October 25).

“We had no plans to change him today either,” Flick added. “We had other players to manage their game load, too, and Lamine right now is at a top level physically. He enjoys playing football, he is more happy playing like that, and tonight he changed the game in our favour.”

With Yamal in this form, can Barcelona win the Champions League for the first time since 2015?Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images

With Tuesday’s result, Barca have scored at least three goals in each of their past eight games — to find a better streak, you have to go back to the 1942-43 season, when they did it in nine successive matches.

Barca have scored 84 Champions League goals since Flick took over in June 2024, averaging three goals per game. According to Opta, it is the best goals-per-game ratio from any club under any manager with at least 20 games in the competition.

It all makes Barcelona a side worthy of being considered among the competition’s favourites.

“Football can change very fast,” Flick replied when asked whether he felt his team was unstoppable. “We are proud of how we played but our ambitions are higher than that. We want to win titles, and you don’t win them right now. In May and June we have to be there for the trophies, and we work with that goal.”

But a player like Yamal, who can turn a tricky game into a stroll in the park, will certainly help Barca reach their target of becoming European champions for the first time in 12 years.