Lamine Yamal nurses hamstring injury after rampant playing time

With its financial woes, Barcelona has been forced to play young players who have regularly picked up injuries from wear and tear. Ansu Fati’s career took a massive turn when he picked up several muscle injuries while at Barcelona. Pedri missed considerable playing time over recent seasons after battling hamstring injuries. Those injuries came on the back of the duo playing droves of games as teenagers. Now, Lamine Yamal is the latest to pick up a hamstring injury for the same reason as those two.

On Monday, FC Barcelona announced that Lamine Yamal will undergo further testing upon returning to the club. Yamal was on international duty with Spain, where he played the majority of the game in the side’s game against Denmark. He did not exit that game due to injury, which is at least some sort of good news for the club. Initial reports indicated that it was no more than a hamstring strain, something that Yamal can recover from. Yet, those further tests that are looming for Yamal will be able to further tell what the damage is.

Therefore, Barcelona cannot provide any timetable for what the status of Yamal is. The Catalan club plays Sevilla on the Saturday after the October international break, and his availability for that game is unclear. Barcelona manager Hansi Flick plans to incorporate Lamal in his squad for that game against Sevilla. Granted, if further scans and tests show the injury is more serious, Hansi Flick may have no option but to leave the wonderkid out of the squad.

Barcelona must be conscious of Lamine Yamal hamstring injury

Losing Yamal for that Sevilla game and perhaps several weeks would throw off what has been a great start to the campaign. Barcelona currently leads LaLiga, and it rattled off a dominating performance last time out in the UEFA Champions League. Lamine Yamal has been at the center of that, as the 17-year-old has scored four goals and tallied five assists in nine LaLiga appearances. He ranks top 10 in LaLiga in both categories in the early going.

Barcelona’s upcoming schedule is challenging. After playing Sevilla at home, Barcelona faces Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League then returns to LaLiga action with a trip to Real Madrid. That fixture at the Santiago Bernabeu could be paramount to Barcelona’s chances of a LaLiga title this season. The club will need Lamine Yamal available to maximize its chances of success.

Yet, this injury to Lamine Yamal goes beyond this season. Failing to allow the injury to fully heal could be detrimental to the teenager’s career moving forward. It was not long ago that Ansu Fati was the starlet for Barcelona. The club even gave him the No. 10 shirt after Lionel Messi. That was enough to give him the pressure of being the club’s next savior. Of course, that never came to fruition, and injuries played a massive role in that.

Lamine Yamal has already proven his ability, and Barcelona has someone to build around for the future. There is no need to rush back the teenager so early to force this injury to be worse than it already is.

PHOTOS: IMAGO