Lionel Messi vs Lamine Yamal
Twenty years apart in age, they have played each other once, in the 2026 World Cup final that Yamal's Spain won 1–0 after extra time, and first met in 2007, when Messi held the baby Yamal for a charity calendar.
By the Oddsivio teamLast reviewed Stats updated
Last season · club and country together · official matches
Who does what?
Lionel Messi scored more goals and created more chances last season; they were level on assists and pass completion.
Worth knowing: Lamine Yamal is doing this at 19; Lionel Messi is 39.
What separates them
2 of 4 pass both our tests: a big enough gap, and sure enough to hold.
- Messi
- Yamal
- Typical forwards
- Goals per 90Messi led1.0245 goals0.5025 goals
About twice as many goals: about 15 more over 30 full matches.
Held up next season: about 9 in 10
- Chances created per 90Messi led3.2140 chances2.6131 chances
About 16 more chances created over 30 full matches for Messi than Yamal.
Held up next season: about 7 in 10
- Assists per 90Level0.4118 assists0.4020 assists
Too small a gap against typical forwards to name a leader.
- Pass completion share of passes completedLevel82%50%100%81%
Too small a gap against typical forwards to name a leader. Pass completion depends a lot on role and team.
Per 90 = per 90 minutes played, so different minutes compare fairly.
Does it hold up?
Without penalties
Lionel Messi still led (0.99 vs 0.38 per 90; 44 goals to 19).
How they play · volume, not a lead
Lamine Yamal made far more interceptions (0.4 vs 0.1 per 90) and made far more tackles (1.5 vs 0.7 per 90) last season.
Why this comparison
In the autumn of 2007 the Barcelona sports paper Sport made a charity calendar with UNICEF, pairing the club's players with local families, and a family from the Rocafonda district of Mataró won a raffle to have their baby photographed at the Camp Nou. The player was Lionel Messi, then 20, and the baby was Lamine Yamal, born that July. The photographer, Joan Monfort, remembered Messi as shy and unsure at first how to hold him. The pictures went round the world in July 2024, during EURO 2024, when Yamal's father, Mounir Nasraoui, posted one on Instagram with the caption "The beginning of two legends".
Both came through Barcelona's academy, but they were never team-mates: Messi played his last game for the club in May 2021 and left that August, and Yamal made his first-team debut in April 2023, aged 15. In July 2025 he was handed the No 10 shirt Messi had worn from 2008, and said Messi had made his path and he would make his own. They met on a pitch for the first time in the 2026 World Cup final, and three months later, on the first Ballon d'Or shortlist to include both of them, Yamal finished third and Messi fifth.
Every number · last season
| MessiLionel Messi | Stat | YamalLamine Yamal |
|---|---|---|
3,981 | Minutes | 4,468 |
46 | Matches | 55 |
88.38Star · 40 club games · as of 2026-11-06 | Current squad importance | 87.78Star · 40 club games · as of 2026-11-06 |
1.0245 in total | goals per 90 | 0.5025 in total |
0.4118 in total | assists per 90 | 0.4020 in total |
3.2140 in total | chances created per 90 | 2.6131 in total |
3.5154 in total | shots per 90 | 2.9145 in total |
5.9263 in total | take-ons tried per 90 | 9.3463 in total |
0.733 in total | tackles per 90 | 1.572 in total |
0.16 in total | interceptions per 90 | 0.420 in total |
5.7254 in total | duels won per 90 | 9.0446 in total |
82% | 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?
Once, and the list below has that game. The 2026 World Cup final, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on 19 July 2026 in front of 80,663 people, is the only time they have played against each other. A first meeting had been set for 27 March 2026, when Spain and Argentina were due to play the Finalissima in Qatar, but on 15 March 2026 UEFA called it off: the conflict in the Middle East ruled out Qatar, and no other date or venue could be agreed. Both played all 120 minutes of the final, Messi at 39 years and 25 days, the oldest outfield player to appear in one, FIFA said, and Yamal at 19 years and 6 days. Yamal forced the first of Emiliano Martínez's saves in the fifth minute and, at 0–0, curled a free kick towards the top corner that Martínez tipped away in stoppage time; in that same stoppage time Enzo Fernández was sent off for a second yellow card, leaving Argentina a man short for extra time. Ferran Torres scored the only goal in the 106th minute, after Nico Williams headed Pedro Porro's cross down to him, and in the 113th Yamal sent Torres through for a second that was ruled out for offside. NBC counted more shots, dribbles and tackles for Yamal than for any other player in the final; Messi touched the ball 54 times, by ESPN's count, and his one shot, in the 117th minute, was blocked by Mikel Merino's face. Neither scored, set up a goal or was booked. After the final whistle Messi sat on the grass, and before the medals were handed out Yamal came over to embrace him. They have never played in the same team.
Looking up their matches…
What the numbers don't show
The card's last season is a different stretch of the calendar for each of them, though both end with the World Cup final. Messi's league, MLS, runs from February to December, so on 5 November 2026 his last-season figures are Inter Miami's 2025 season, MLS Cup included, with Argentina's games from September 2025 to the final: 46 games and 3,981 minutes. Yamal's are Barcelona's 2025/26 season and Spain's official games up to the same final: 55 games and 4,468 minutes, in a season in which a groin problem kept him out of several games in September and October 2025 and a hamstring injury on 22 April 2026 ended his league campaign. The card does not adjust for the strength of a league, and most of Messi's minutes were in MLS, most of Yamal's in La Liga and the Champions League.
Two rows need a note. Penalties make up 6 of Yamal's 25 goals in that window and 1 of Messi's 45, and the card's line without penalties takes them out. Assists depend on who counts them. The card takes the last pass before a goal from our match feed, which credits Messi with 12 in Inter Miami's 2025 MLS season, play-offs included; MLS counts 28, 19 in the regular season and 9 in the play-offs. MLS also credits the pass before the last one when it leads directly to a goal, so part of that gap is a different rule, but our feed has missed some of his last passes too. Read his assist figure on the card as a minimum, and its call that the two are level on assists in that light.
Estimated value
Lamine Yamal's Oddsivio estimated value is higher: €288m (#1 of 10,342 players valued) to Lionel Messi's €11m (#1,379 of 10,342 players valued). Messi's estimate dipped 29% this season; Yamal's estimate rose 39% since season start.Oddsivio estimated value — a model estimate from recent performance data, not betting advice.
Lionel Messi
Oddsivio estimated value
€11m
−29% this season
#1,379 of 10,342 players valued#37 of 729 in the Major League Soccer
Lamine Yamal
Oddsivio estimated value
€288m
+39% since season start
#1 of 10,342 players valued#1 of 511 in La Liga
Questions fans ask
Did Messi really bathe Lamine Yamal as a baby?
Yes. The photos were taken in the visitors' dressing room at the Camp Nou for Sport's 2008 calendar, and Oriol Canals, who organised it for the paper, dates Messi's session to 31 October 2007, when Yamal was about three and a half months old; his mother, Sheila Ebana, is in the pictures too. Monfort did not know the baby had grown up to be Yamal until a friend messaged him in July 2024. That month Yamal said the family had never made the photos public because they did not want people comparing him with Messi, and in September 2026 he told The Guardian that when his father once put one on Facebook he asked him to take it down, because he wanted to be Lamine, not Messi. Messi spoke about the pictures for the first time on 17 July 2026, two days before the final, calling the photo incredible and saying it was crazy to have a picture taken with a baby and then face him at a World Cup.
What did Messi and Yamal say to each other after the World Cup final?
Yamal said afterwards, in comments reported by Marca, that Messi had told him to keep going his own way and that the future belonged to their generation, and that those words meant as much to him as the gold medal around his neck. In September 2026 he told The Guardian what he had said in return: thank you for everything Messi had given football, adding that the gesture came from inside and was not for the photo. Messi's first public words came the next day, in an Instagram post saying the pain was very great and the wound would take time to heal, in which he also congratulated Spain. On 31 August 2026 he announced his retirement from Argentina's team in a handwritten letter he said he had written on 21 July, two days after the final.
How do Yamal's numbers compare with Messi's at the same age?
Yamal started younger and has played far more. His official Barcelona debut came at 15 years and 290 days, Messi's at 17 years and 114 days, as a late substitute at Espanyol in October 2004. Yamal scored his first Barcelona goal at 16 years and 87 days, at Granada in October 2023, the youngest scorer in La Liga's history; Messi scored his first for the club at 17 years and 311 days, against Albacete in May 2005, lifting Ronaldinho's pass over the goalkeeper. On the eve of the 2026 final ESPN counted 151 senior games and 49 goals for Yamal at Barcelona, where Messi at the same age had played 32 games and scored nine. Over their first 100 games for the club Messi scored more often, with 41 goals and 14 assists, by ESPN's count of May 2025, to Yamal's 22 goals and 27 assists. In August 2026 Yamal became the youngest player in Barcelona's history to reach 50 goals, at 19 years and 49 days, and on 3 November 2026 his 14th Champions League goal made him the competition's highest-scoring teenager, one more than Kylian Mbappé.
What has Messi said about Yamal, and Yamal about Messi?
Messi has praised him more than once. In December 2024, asked which young player reminded him of himself, he said he had heard people choose Yamal and agreed, calling him the present, with a huge future ahead of him. He put Yamal first on his ballot for the 2025 Kopa Trophy, which former Ballon d'Or winners vote for, and before the final called him one of the best players in the world, 19 years old with his whole career ahead of him, adding that Argentina would give everything to stop him becoming champion. Yamal has called Messi the best in history more than once, as on CBS's 60 Minutes in November 2025, where he added: "We both know I don't want to be Messi, and Messi knows I don't want to be him." His idol, he has said since at least January 2025, is Neymar: he told CNN that month that Neymar had always been his idol, and in June 2026 he told RTVE the same, adding that Messi was the best, with no discussion about that. An adidas release of February 2024 had quoted him as having idolised Messi growing up. In July 2024 he said he had never spoken to Messi.
What have Messi and Yamal won?
Messi has won far more, in a career that began before Yamal was born: 48 team trophies by MLS's count after the Campeones Cup in September 2026, among them ten La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues with Barcelona, the 2022 World Cup, two Copas América and the 2025 MLS Cup, in which he set up two goals and was named the final's best player. He has won the Ballon d'Or eight times and MLS's Most Valuable Player award in 2024 and 2025. Yamal has the 2026 World Cup and EURO 2024, which made him, at 19 years and 6 days, the youngest player to have won both, Barcelona said, and with Barcelona three La Liga titles, the first from a single appearance in 2022–23, the 2025 Copa del Rey and the Spanish Super Cups of 2025 and 2026. His individual awards include the 2024 Golden Boy, the Kopa Trophy, the Ballon d'Or's award for the best player under 21, in 2024, 2025 and 2026, when it was listed as Young Talent of the Year, and La Liga's player of the season award for 2025–26; he was second in the Ballon d'Or in 2025, when Messi was not nominated, and third in 2026. At the 2026 World Cup Messi scored eight goals to Yamal's one and won the Silver Ball, behind Rodri, and the young player award went to Yamal's team-mate Pau Cubarsí.
Will Messi and Yamal play against each other again?
Not for their countries. Messi played his last game for Argentina on 6 October 2026, a 3–0 friendly win over Benin in Buenos Aires, scoring a penalty in his 208th appearance, so any future meeting would have to come at club level. Barcelona and Inter Miami have never met in a competitive game, and no game between them had been announced by 5 November 2026: Barcelona's Gamper Trophy game in August 2026 was against Al Ahly, and Barcelona's president, Joan Laporta, who said in March 2026 that Messi deserved a tribute match, said in September that it would come once the rebuilt Camp Nou was finished, with no date or opponent set. Messi's contract with Inter Miami runs through 2028, and Yamal's with Barcelona to 30 June 2031.