Lamine Yamal achieves milestone last reached by Lionel Messi in 2007 | OneFootball

Although Robert Lewandowski was the main differentiator in Barcelona’s narrow win over Deportivo Alaves, it was Lamine Yamal who stole the show.

The young Barcelona forward was simply mesmerising to watch as he kept dribbling past Alaves defenders at will.

The forward created multiple chances through his ability to not only get past defenders but also find crucial passes in the final third.

One of Yamal’s dribbles even reminded many Barcelona fans of Lionel Messi as he dribbled past almost half the Alaves defence.

Yamal reaches key milestone

Yamal’s ‘Messi-esque’ performance has been backed by statistics as well, as the forward has reached a milestone that was last reached by none other than Messi himself.

It was a Messiesque performance from Lamine Yamal (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

Indeed, Opta reveals that Yamal attempted a whopping 21 dribbles against Alaves this afternoon while succeeding in 11 of them.

This marks the highest dribble attempt made by any Barcelona player since Lionel Messi back in 2007 against Mallorca.

Interestingly, Messi was in a similar stage of his career as Yamal is at Barcelona right now – two young attackers looking to establish themselves as worldwide stars.

This is notwithstanding the fact that Messi, in 2007, was three years older than Yamal’s current age. What Messi did after 2007, though, is what matters most and this will be the biggest task for Yamal if he wants to reach the same level.

Hansi Flick, for his part, offered a coy response when asked about Yamal and Messi comparisons after the Alaves win, but the German tactician hailed the youngster as a ‘genius’.