Arda Güler vs Lamine Yamal
Two left-footed playmakers born two years and four months apart, who have met five times since April 2025 without once being on the pitch together for a whole game.
By the Oddsivio teamLast reviewed Stats updated
Last season · club and country together · official matches
Who does what?
Last season, Lamine Yamal scored more goals; the two were level on assists, with chances created too close to call. That said, Arda Güler completed a higher share of passes (90% vs 81%).
Worth knowing: Arda Güler had 4,100 minutes last season, Lamine Yamal 4,468.
What separates them
2 of 4 pass both our tests: a big enough gap, and sure enough to hold.
- Güler
- Yamal
- Typical forwards
- Goals per 90Yamal led0.188 goals0.5025 goals
About 10 more goals over 30 full matches for Yamal than Güler.
Held up next season: about 9 in 10
- Chances created per 90Too close to call2.8129 chances2.6131 chances
Not sure enough to name a leader.
- Assists per 90Level0.4018 assists0.4020 assists
Too small a gap against typical forwards to name a leader.
- Pass completion share of passes completedGüler led90%50%100%81%
Pass completion depends a lot on role and team.
Held up next season: about 9 in 10
Per 90 = per 90 minutes played, so different minutes compare fairly.
Does it hold up?
Without penalties
Lamine Yamal still led (0.38 vs 0.18 per 90; 19 goals to 8).
How they play · volume, not a lead
Lamine Yamal tried far more take-ons (9.3 vs 1.9 per 90) and won far more duels (9.0 vs 4.7 per 90) last season.
Why this comparison
The comparison is older than their first meeting. Arda Güler joined Real Madrid from Fenerbahçe in July 2023, for a fee that Fenerbahçe told the Istanbul stock exchange was €20 million plus up to €10 million in bonuses, ten weeks after Lamine Yamal's Barcelona debut at 15. In May 2024 beIN Sports set Güler's six La Liga goals, scored in 373 minutes, against Yamal's five in 2,133. That autumn the two finished first and second in the Kopa Trophy, the Ballon d'Or's prize for players under 21, and the Turkish daily Hürriyet reported the vote as 113 to 26, the widest margin between first and second in the award's history.
The night that turned the pair into a search was 7 September 2025 in Konya. The day before, Güler told Türkiye's press conference that the two did not play in the same position, that their styles were different and that comparing them would not be right. Spain won 6–0, Yamal set up two of the goals, and late on Güler shoved him twice over a free kick. By September 2026 the argument had moved to chances created, with AS, El País and Goal setting Güler's count against Yamal's in the same week.
Every number · last season
| GülerArda Güler | Stat | YamalLamine Yamal |
|---|---|---|
4,100 | Minutes | 4,468 |
61 | Matches | 55 |
63.18Important · 40 club games · as of 2026-10-12 | Current squad importance | 84.48Star · 40 club games · as of 2026-10-12 |
0.188 in total | goals per 90 | 0.5025 in total |
0.4018 in total | assists per 90 | 0.4020 in total |
2.8129 in total | chances created per 90 | 2.6131 in total |
1.671 in total | shots per 90 | 2.9145 in total |
1.986 in total | take-ons tried per 90 | 9.3463 in total |
1.673 in total | tackles per 90 | 1.572 in total |
0.521 in total | interceptions per 90 | 0.420 in total |
4.7216 in total | duels won per 90 | 9.0446 in total |
90% | pass completion | 81% |
Goals and assists are counted from match events; the other counts come from the provider's detailed match stats. Squad importance describes the current club role over its recent club-game window; it is independent of the comparison window.
Have they played each other?
Up to 6 October 2026 the two had faced each other in five competitive games, four of them Clásicos and one a World Cup qualifier, and the list below holds all five. Yamal's side won four. Only three of the five saw both of them start, and in every one somebody was substituted, so the two have been on the pitch together for 271 minutes in all and never for a whole game. Their first meeting was the Copa del Rey final in Seville on 26 April 2025: Yamal set up Pedri's opening goal and Ferran Torres's late equaliser, and Güler, on after 55 minutes, took the corner that Aurélien Tchouaméni headed in, before Barcelona won 3–2 in extra time. A fortnight later Yamal scored in the 4–3 at the Olympic Stadium on Montjuïc and Güler, who had started on the right, was taken off at half-time. In Konya in September 2025 Güler played all 90 minutes of Türkiye's 6–0 defeat and Yamal, with two assists, came off after 73. At the Bernabéu in October 2025 Güler started on the left of the midfield and took the corners, Yamal played the whole game, and Real Madrid won 2–1, their one win of the five. In the Spanish Super Cup final in Jeddah in January 2026 Güler came on with 22 minutes left and Barcelona won 3–2. The list cannot show the Clásicos they might have shared: Güler was an unused substitute in four in a row, from the Super Cup final of January 2024 to the one of January 2025, while Yamal played in all four and scored in two. Nor can it show the two games in which neither played. Yamal missed Spain's 2–2 draw with Türkiye in Seville on 18 November 2025 after a procedure on a groin injury, and Güler watched it from the bench. Both missed the Clásico of 10 May 2026 that made Barcelona champions, with hamstring injuries, Güler's in the right leg and Yamal's in the left, which their clubs announced on the same day, 23 April 2026. The list counts only competitive games, so it leaves out Real Madrid's 1–2 defeat by Barcelona at the MetLife Stadium in August 2024, in which Güler set up Nico Paz's goal and Yamal, on leave after the European Championship, was absent. They were due to meet again at the Spotify Camp Nou on 25 October 2026. The Spanish Super Cup is due in Istanbul in the first week of February 2027, with Barcelona and Real Madrid in separate semi-finals, so a meeting in Güler's home country needs both to reach the final on 6 February 2027. Their countries are in different Nations League groups: Spain, with four wins from four, are already sure of a quarter-final place in March 2027, and Türkiye, without a point from four games, cannot reach one, so Spain and Türkiye cannot meet again before June 2027 unless a friendly is arranged.
Looking up their matches…
What the numbers don't show
The card judges both among forwards, but over the two years it reads only one of them has played as one. In our line-up records of the two years to 7 October 2026, Yamal is on the right wing for 94% of his minutes, under one Barcelona coach, Hansi Flick. Güler's minutes split three ways, 36% as the central attacking midfielder, 24% in central midfield and 21% on the right wing, under four Real Madrid coaches: Carlo Ancelotti used him mostly on the right, Xabi Alonso moved him into the middle of midfield in 2025–26, Álvaro Arbeloa started him on the left in the spring of 2026, and in August and September 2026 José Mourinho had him on the right of the attacking midfield in four of his five league starts. Mourinho said in August 2026 that he expected Güler to start as a No 10 and end his career as a No 8 or a No 6, as he said had happened to Luka Modrić and Bernardo Silva.
Each has worn a No 10 shirt somewhere. Yamal took Barcelona's in July 2025. Güler wears 15 for Real Madrid and wore 8 for Türkiye at the World Cup, then 10 in the Nations League games of September and October 2026 after the injured Hakan Çalhanoğlu handed it to him before the France game. Minutes and penalties move the rows too. Güler's first season as a regular starter was 2025–26, when he started 40 of his 51 club games in our records, and by 20 September 2026 he had been substituted in all five of his league starts of 2026–27; Yamal started 42 of 45 club games in 2025–26 and all eight of Barcelona's up to 19 September 2026. Eight of Yamal's 53 goals in our two-year window to 7 October 2026 were penalties, and Güler had scored none, which is what the card's line without penalties checks.
Estimated value
Lamine Yamal's Oddsivio estimated value is higher: €283m (#1 of 9,335 players valued) to Arda Güler's €99m (#21 of 9,335 players valued). Güler's estimate rose 5% since season start; Yamal's estimate rose 36% since season start.Oddsivio estimated value — a model estimate from recent performance data, not betting advice.
Arda Güler
Oddsivio estimated value
€99m
+5% since season start
#21 of 9,335 players valued#7 of 506 in La Liga
Lamine Yamal
Oddsivio estimated value
€283m
+36% since season start
#1 of 9,335 players valued#1 of 506 in La Liga
Questions fans ask
Who is better, Arda Güler or Lamine Yamal?
Nothing on this page decides it: the verdict at the top is worked out from the figures for whichever window you pick. The votes so far have gone one way. Yamal beat Güler to the 2024 Kopa Trophy, by 113 votes to 26 on Hürriyet's count, and won it again in 2025, when Güler was not among the nominees; Yamal was second in the 2025 Ballon d'Or and was named among the 30 nominees for the 2026 award on 8 September 2026, for the ceremony at the London Palladium on 26 October 2026, and Güler has not been on either list. Güler's 2025–26 brought prizes of a different kind: UEFA's technical observers named him the Champions League's Revelation of the Season, the first winner of that award, and LaLiga chose his lob from his own half against Elche, measured by ESPN at 68.6 metres, as its goal of the season, the week it named Yamal its player of the season. Asked to compare them before the Konya game, Spain's coach Luis de la Fuente called them two tremendous players with their own characteristics, and Güler's own answer was that it would not be right to compare two players in different positions.
Güler vs Yamal stats: who has the better numbers this season?
The card's 2026/27 view carries the live figures and holds its verdict until each player has 1,800 minutes. Up to Spain's game in Croatia on 6 October 2026, Yamal had 12 goals and seven assists in 12 games for Barcelona and Spain: eight goals and six assists in eight club games to 19 September, then four goals in four Nations League games, the first of them after two minutes at Wembley. Güler had one goal and two assists in seven league games for Real Madrid to 20 September, in 349 minutes, and came off in each of his five starts; he then played all 270 minutes of Türkiye's three Nations League defeats in September and October and was suspended for the fourth, in Italy on 5 October 2026, after a second booking. In 2025–26 he had six goals and 14 assists in 51 club games to Yamal's 24 and 17 in 45, on our count. Both were injured in the same week, Güler against Alavés on 21 April 2026 and Yamal against Celta Vigo the next day; Yamal did not play again that season, and Güler returned for the last quarter of an hour of Real Madrid's final game, on 23 May.
Have Güler and Yamal played against each other?
Five times in competitive games up to 6 October 2026, four of them Clásicos: the 2025 Copa del Rey final, the league games of May and October 2025 and the Spanish Super Cup final of January 2026, plus Türkiye's 6–0 defeat by Spain in a World Cup qualifier in Konya in September 2025. Yamal's side won four. Yamal started all five, played 463 minutes and has a goal and four assists in them; Güler started three, came on in both finals, played 288 minutes and has one assist, the corner for Tchouaméni's header in Seville. Neither was booked in any of the five. They have never played on the same side, and because one of them was always a substitute or substituted, they have shared the pitch for 271 minutes in all.
What happened between Güler and Yamal in Konya?
Late in Spain's 6–0 win in the World Cup qualifier of 7 September 2025, Güler went to take a free kick quickly and Yamal stood in front of the ball. Güler pushed him, and when Yamal did not move, pushed him again; Fanatik reported that Yamal laughed in reply, under a headline saying he had mocked him, and Goal's report called it Güler's frustration boiling over. The Spanish papers made a story of it that night and the next day: AS wrote that sparks had flown and that it ended in a shoving match, and Marca, as Fanatik's round-up quoted it, that the two had started pushing and shoving. The referee showed no card to either, and the only words from the players came from Güler, the day before: that he had little to say about Yamal, that they did not play in the same areas and that he felt no pressure from the comparisons. Yamal, who set up Spain's fourth and fifth goals, went off with 17 minutes left.
Who creates more chances, Güler or Yamal?
The card's row for chances created answers that for each window, and names a leader only when the gap is big enough to hold. The Spanish press has kept its own count through 2026. On 14 September 2026 AS had Güler on 24 chances created after five rounds of La Liga to Yamal's 18; El País wrote the next day that his 8.3 key passes per 90 minutes, on Hudl Statsbomb's figures, were more than double Yamal's; and after seven rounds the Squawka count reported by Yeniçağ had them at 28 and 27. The season before ran the other way. In March 2026 AS had Yamal on ten La Liga assists and Güler second on eight, and when 2025–26 ended Yamal's 11 were the most in the league on ESPN's count, while Güler's nine put him joint third on the same count. In February 2026 Mundo Deportivo noted that Yamal had created almost as many chances as Güler and Vinícius Júnior put together. In our records from October 2024 to 7 October 2026, Güler had created 236 chances in 7,039 minutes and Yamal 251 in 9,566, so the rate favoured Güler and the total Yamal. Some of Güler's are dead balls: his assist in the 2025 Copa del Rey final was a corner.
What have Güler and Yamal won?
Güler's trophies came early. His first Real Madrid season, 2023–24, ended with the league title, the Champions League and the Spanish Super Cup from 12 appearances in all competitions, and in 2024 he added the UEFA Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup; with Fenerbahçe he had won the Turkish Cup in 2023. Real Madrid won nothing in 2025–26, their first season without a trophy since 2020–21: they finished eight points behind Barcelona, lost the Super Cup final to them and went out to Bayern in the Champions League quarter-final, where Güler scored twice in the second leg. Yamal has three La Liga titles, the first of them earned with one appearance in 2022–23, the 2025 Copa del Rey and the Spanish Super Cups of 2025 and 2026, and with Spain EURO 2024 and the 2026 World Cup, won at 19 years and six days. Türkiye reached that World Cup, their first since 2002, through the play-offs in March 2026, and went out in the group stage after Güler scored in the 3–2 win over the United States, their only win.