Lamine Yamal surpasses Diego Maradona Barcelona record but Lionel Messi remains clear | OneFootball

Lamine Yamal has now surpassed the number of goals that Diego Maradona scored for Barcelona, but did he do it quicker than Lionel Messi? We’ve crunched the numbers.

Since breaking through in 2023, Yamal has taken the football world by storm and has already broken countless records.

During Barcelona’s recent 2-1 triumph over Albacete, Yamal scored his 39th goal for the club, taking him one clear of Maradona’s tally in Spain.

In total, Maradona scored 38 goals and provided 23 assists during his 58 matches for Barcelona. During that period, he also won two trophies with the club.

While Yamal needed 135 games to break Maradona’s record, it’s still impressive that the 18-year-old ranks above the Argentine legend in the all-time scoring charts.

For comparison, it took Messi 98 games to surpass Maradona’s record of 38 goals, as he surpassed the milestone back in February 2008.

Therefore, it’s taken Yamal an extra 37 games in comparison to Messi to break Maradona’s scoring record for the club.

However, while Yamal needed more games to reach the tally, he has achieved the feat at a significantly younger age than Messi.

Indeed, Yamal is currently only 18 years old, whereas Messi was two years older when he scored his 39th goal for the club.

Comparatively, Messi was integrated into the Barcelona XI at a much steadier pace than Yamal. That’s arguably one of the reasons he’s had such longevity in the game.

Given the volume of games that Yamal has already played at such a young age, it would be an astonishing achievement if he’s still playing at the highest level in his late thirties.

Being a technically gifted left-footed player at Barcelona, it’s only natural that Yamal has drawn comparisons to the likes of Messi and Maradona.

However, his rapid development is no guarantee that he’ll live up to that level. After all, we are arguably taking about the two greatest players of all time.

In the case of Messi, he’s always looked up to Maradona and has regularly cited the Argentine as his idol.

“For us Argentinians, Maradona was always our greatest idol and our deepest admiration,” Messi said during an interview with NBC Nightly News.

“Diego transcended everything.

“I would have liked Diego to give me the [World] Cup, or at least to see all of this. From above, he and many people who love me were strong.

“He made us love football in a completely different way.”

While Yamal has now surpassed Maradona’s Barcelona tally, it will take him significantly longer to catch Messi, who is the club’s record scorer.

As things stand, Yamal is 633 goals away from catching Messi’s tally in Spain, so we can safely assume that record is safe for the foreseeable future.