Who Is Lamine Yamal?
Lamine Yamal displayed his quality to the world in a major way when Spain faced Italy in the second fixture of UEFA Euro 2024 group stage.
His performance in that game left many positive thoughts and evaluations of the player.
He was called up for the first time ever to such a renowned continental competition at the age of 16, which represents a record in itself.
Despite his young age, Yamal proved previously with FC Barcelona that he has a remarkable personality.
He confirmed this fact when facing Italy by putting on a compelling performance and playing without fear, especially in his one-on-one duels against his direct marker, Inter Milan‘s Federico Dimarco.
Not only that, Yamal was capable of doing all that he planned to achieve in this game.
He cut inside and dribbled outside before crossing, shot on target, provided key passes, and was a constant source of danger to Italy’s defence.
With a senior footballing career that started only in 2023 with Barcelona B and then with Barcelona, it is quite impressive how Yamal gives the impression that he has been playing for the senior Spanish team for quite some time.
This tranquillity and confidence in his natural skills and physical abilities make Yamal a dangerous player and a key weapon destined to do a lot for Spain during this tournament and later in the upcoming competitions.
That being said, Yamal must keep his feet on the ground as they say and continue improving his skills and learning how to position himself better, finish more accurately, and defend more efficiently to become a more complete winger, whether for Barcelona or Spain.
In this tactical analysis and scout report, we will meticulously examine Lamine Yamal’s style of play and overall abilities.
The analysis also aims to explore why Spain insisted on calling up such a young player to their Euro 2024 team and, therefore, discover his importance to Spain’s tactics.
Lamine Yamal Position For Spain
Although Yamal is only 16, his footballing abilities enabled him to be called up for a big competition like the UEFA EURO 2024 and to play as a starter for a nation with many talents and powerful players like Spain.
This can only confirm the fact that Yamal is a very impressive player with outstanding qualities.
The following graphic highlights Yamal’s key traits and shows that he is actually one of the best dribblers in La Liga.
He has a very high dribbling success rate and a high average in winning duels inside the final third.
Moreover, one of Yamal’s most remarkable traits is his ability to position himself well and provide a constant passing option.
This is very important for the Spanish style of play, as they rely a lot on movements without the ball and on the ability to remain dynamic without the ball and ask for it throughout the match.
This means that Yamal’s qualities suit Spain’s footballing philosophy, especially when he can provide many dangerous passes per game, as the graphic shows.
These are some of the motives that encouraged Spain to opt to include Yamal in their UEFA EURO 2024 squad and rely on him in a serious way in the group stage so far.
The graphic also points out that Yamal is not really good in the air and needs some improvements and encouragement regarding shooting, yet the rest of his numbers are very promising and fit Spain’s football.
Lamine Yamal Radar Map
Moreover, Spain and their coaching staff led by Luis de la Fuente could not find a better choice for the right-wing role as they tried numerous other players previously, such as Ansu Fati, Ferran Torres, Pablo Sarabia, former Real Madrid player Marco Asensio and more, concluding that Yamal can be more dangerous and useful than all the rest.
With his dynamism, excellent pace, dribbling skills, ability to pass and shoot with both feet, along with excellent balance and ball protection abilities, Yamal is surely destined to be even more useful for Spain, as he will more likely remain the regular starter on the wing.
His ability to not lose the ball easily, resist defenders’ aggressive disturbance, and still pass the ball without giving it away to opponents makes him an even more valuable and needed player within this Spanish team.
Lamine Yamal Goalscoring Skills
With very little time spent at the senior level, Yamal has already proven that he is a very clinical finisher who knows how to deal with half-chances and who has even been capable of creating goalscoring chances for himself before finishing with remarkable accuracy.
In fact, Yamal scores an average of 0.32 goals per game and shoots 2.43 times on goal per match.
Although these numbers are not high enough, we should consider that this was the player’s first season at the senior level and that he has been improving his performance linearly from game to game.
Moreover, Yamal is expected to be even more decisive when pursuing goalscoring opportunities next season, as he seems to mature with each match he plays.
The following example highlights his ability to successfully opt for Robben-like cuts inside and curved shots despite their complexity.
Imagining the whole action in his mind and the shooting trajectory is very clear here as he took no time at all after dribbling past his opponent and before shooting, as he did not even look at the goal.
This confirms that Yamal often plans and imagines what he will do beforehand, which facilitates his work and eventually complicates the jobs of defenders and goalkeepers.
Another essential aspect that is progressing very quickly with Yamal is his ability to position himself in key spots when the team is in possession and exploit his good attacking positioning by converting the received passes into goals.
In other words, Yamal’s penetrations towards the box during crosses or when finding free spaces have been occurring frequently lately.
Yamal’s intelligence and tactical flexibility allow him to know when and why he should move from the wing towards the box and play as a second striker on certain occasions.
This happens especially when noting that the striker is tightly marked and that the defenders might leave spaces behind, as they did in this example: Yamal noticed the empty space on the far post and attacked it immediately to score a goal while leaving his direct marker behind.
In addition to his key attacking movements, Yamal is capable of dealing with complicated situations in front of a goal with cold blood, confidence, and excellent ball control, which allows him to always have the advantage on the ball.
This goal example against Cyprus not only highlights his ability to position himself well inside the box but also shows his qualities in front of goal as he was able to confuse him with a misleading dribble before feinting to shoot in order to confuse the two other defenders who tried to deviate his shot.
In the end, Yamal shot the ball after all three opponents had no chance to intercept it, and he made sure that his shot trajectory was destined to hit the net.
Such actions obviously require a lot of character and a strong personality, as well as the necessity of mastering the planned actions.
This can be considered one of the decisive factors that made Spain lean towards opting for Yamal as their starting right-winger and not anyone else.
Lamine Yamal Playmaking abilities
With 80.7% passing accuracy, Lamine Yamal style of play has been very dangerous regarding playmaking and passing, as his position requires some excellent passing and crossing qualities.
Although he can still develop his passing abilities even further to improve his passing accuracy, Yamal has already proved that he can provide regular assistance, whether with Barcelona or with Spain.
This example from the first match of UEFA EURO 2024 shows Yamal’s first assist during the tournament and points out his excellent and very accurate curved crosses.
This one was purposefully directed towards the near post to meet his teammate’s header.
Timing is also very important in such cases, and Yamal proved not only in this example but also that he often times executes his passes and crosses very well.
Another important trait that Yamal has is his ability to provide key passes while dribbling and running.
Obviously, passing when moving and dribbling is more complicated and might lead to inaccurate passes.
However, Yamal finds no issues in delivering key passes immediately after dribbling and while running.
Not all wingers can pass quickly during such actions; more importantly, it is very complicated to provide accurate ones.
This kind of pass can destroy the defence’s organisation as they are often unexpected.
The following pass was executed in a way that preceded the concerned player’s movement.
Yamal could even execute a no-look pass here to make the defence’s situation even more unpredictable and his teammate’s job easier.
Moreover, his success in quickly beating his direct marker in a way that makes it look very easy thanks to his quick acceleration and creating the space needed for himself to provide an assist, as he did in this example using the exterior part of the foot against PSG, is quite remarkable and very important as an attacking solution.
Yamal’s dribbling and passing skills have been very useful for Barcelona and Spain so far.
With more work on pace, balance and especially physical strength to resist better against aggressive defenders, Yamal can become even more impactful regarding assists and playmaking in general.
Conclusion
From an early age, Lamine Yamal’s stats and excellent football skills have continued to surprise everyone.
He fully deserves the call-up to UEFA EURO 2024 and has already made a positive impact in the tournament, proving to Spain that they were not wrong to choose him in the squad.
Keeping his feet on the ground and maintaining a high level of performance will be key to becoming an even more useful player, especially if he succeeds in winning something important with Spain in this tournament.
