Few young players have carried the weight of expectations that Lamine Yamal faces at Barcelona. Since his breakthrough, every strong performance has invited comparisons with Lionel Messi, the player who defined the club for two decades, and the Spaniard keeps giving reasons to continue the conversation. His latest display at Spotify Camp Nou added another chapter.
Yamal scored a brace and provided an assist in Barcelona’s 6-1 win over Alaves, standing out as the star of the night. The winger had already been involved in the team’s attack before finding the net himself, including a long pass that set up Fermin Lopez for the second goal of the match.
According to the statistician MisterChip, Yamal will enter November with at least 10 goals and 10 assists in all competitions for Barcelona (he currently has 12 goals and 10 assists after his brace against Alaves).
With those numbers, he became the first player in Spanish football to reach that mark since Messi in 2011, when the Argentine arrived on Oct. 31 with 19 goals and 11 assists in one of the best seasons of his career.
The comparison shows how complete the teenager’s game has become. Yamal is not only scoring but creating chances for his teammates, and that mix has made him the engine of Barcelona’s attack. With the season still young, he has time to keep adding to those numbers and to stay in the conversation with the best years of the player who wore the same shirt before him.
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The numbers go beyond Yamal’s individual night. According to MisterChip, Raphinha (15 goals) and Yamal (10) have combined for 25 goals in the first 11 matchdays of the 2026-27 LaLiga season, a figure no pair of teammates had reached in that span for 86 years.
The last duo to do it was Pruden (17) and Campos (8) of Atletico Madrid in 1940-41, and only one pair has scored more in the first 11 matchdays of a LaLiga campaign: Bata (16) and Iraragorri (10) of Athletic Club, who combined for 26 in 1930-31.
Raphinha and Yamal, who were already part of a Barcelona attack that came into the match averaging four goals per game, now sit second on that list and have put themselves in a place reserved for the most prolific partnerships in the league’s history.
