Arsenal’s Max Dowman joins six other teenagers compared to Lionel Messi | OneFootball

No pressure, kid. You might not be able to buy a pint but we’re already talking you up in the same sentence as the greatest footballer to have ever played the game.

Some of those immensely talented prospects have gone on to enjoy brilliant careers and shine at the highest level, but for others it’s fair to say that invoking the name of the GOAT set an impossible standard.

Here are seven much-hyped youngsters who were already garnering comparisons to Messi when they were first breaking through.

Max Dowman

Mikel Arteta technically didn’t mention Messi by name, but we all know who he meant when he talked up Dowman after the 16-year-old committed his future to Arsenal with a pre-contract agreement.

“Certainly one of the best,” Arteta said.

“What he’s done with us at the age of 15, me personally, I haven’t seen it before. Only with a guy that used to play in Barcelona but maybe not even that.

“He has a certain charisma as well and personality that he doesn’t get overwhelmed, whether it’s by the situation or the stadium or the opposition, and that’s a huge quality to have. Now it’s down to him and us to build an amazing career with him.”

To be fair, when you view those comments in context he’s not said anything too over the top. A player so young catching the eye for an elite-level club is incredibly rare.

But sometimes the Messi comparisons are best left avoided altogether, as most of this lot will attest:

Marcus Edwards

“The qualities – it’s only looks, his body and the way that he plays – remember a little bit from the beginning of Messi,” Mauricio Pochettino told reporters when Edwards was in Tottenham’s academy.

“He’s small, he’s left-footed, I remember a little bit [Erik] Lamela when he was at River Plate, remember he had long hair, when he was 14, 15 years old, there is a lot of videos on YouTube that you can see, that he took the ball, didn’t give a pass and shot straight away.”

The Lamela comparisons were fine. No one would be getting carried away with that. But namechecking Messi hasn’t aged well for the attacking midfielder. He’s decent enough but the fact he’s now at Burnley shows that getting likened to the GOAT was a tad hyperbolic.

Lamine Yamal

Xavi Hernandez set the tone for Yamal’s inevitable Messi comparisons early on.

“He’s got the ability in one-on-one situations, you have to look for him,” the former Barcelona manager said after Yamal made his first-team debut at the age of 15.

“As with [Ousmane] Dembele, with Messi… we must get the ball to him. We have to make the most of it and give this type of player a boost.”

Messi himself picked out Yamal as the one player that most reminds him of himself at an Adidas sponsored event in 2024.

“Well, I heard about Lamine Yamal, without a doubt. It depends on him, and also other things, to be consistent. But he is already part of the present and, without a doubt, he has a huge future ahead of him.”

Yamal takes the comparisons in his stride, but he’s struck the right tone when it comes to emulating Barcelona’s all-time greatest player.

“I like that they compare me to the greatest player in the history of football, but I want to be myself,” he said.

“Reaching Messi’s level is impossible.”

Bojan Krkic

The La Masia academy graduate wasn’t directly compared to Messi by Frank Rijkaard, but the wider media – obsessed with unearthing his successor at the time – did a good enough job of that by themselves.

Bojan scored 10 league goals in his breakthrough 2007-08 campaign at Barcelona, but never again in his entire career did he hit those highs. He made his Spain debut in 2008 but a second appearance never arrived.

“I think it has always been the same and it will always be the same,” Bojan later reflected in an interview with ESPN.

“It’s a reflection of society. We want everything in the moment, and we don’t value what we have and we don’t value ourselves.

“Sometimes we value the person next to us more and that sometimes takes away the satisfaction that we could have if we felt and observed what each one of us has.

“Having said that, I also don’t really understand the need to find or want to find that ‘new Messi’  or, before Messi, that ‘new Ronaldinho.’

“Because, in the end, each one of us is losing the essence of what that player can become, who has nothing to do with another one and the beauty of this is that it is so.”

Facundo Buonanotte

“When he brakes and accelerates, he reminds me of [Lionel] Messi. He is at a very high level,” Carlos Tevez said of the Argentinian playmaker when he was his coach at Rosario Central.

Buonanotte looks a talented prospect, but we’re not sure if that comparison has helped him.

The Leeds United loanee was flattered but was quick to play the comparison down.

“No, it is impossible,” he told The Telegraph.

“He was my idol growing up, my absolute hero. I’m only 19 and he was playing many huge derbies for Barcelona against Real Madrid by then.

“It was great of Tevez to say that and I think maybe he was referring more to my speed and acceleration off the mark.

“It went viral and exploded everywhere, but it would be a lack of respect towards Messi to make a direct comparison.”

Lennart Karl

We’re not sure we can remember a teenager generating as many comparisons to Messi since Bojan back in the day.

Read any profile of the Bayern Munich wonderkid and it’s inevitable that Messi’s name will crop up somewhere. In fairness, we can see where they’re coming from. The way that Karl moves, and his ability with his left foot. It’s uncanny.

Bayern legend Uli Hoeness is a big fan of Karl, but he’s stressed the importance of keeping his feet on the ground and taken those Messi comparisons with a pinch of salt.

“Lennart has been sensational. Nobody wants to hold the youngsters back. They should score as many goals as possible,” Hoeness said earlier this season.

“You mustn’t forget that he’s only played three or four Bundesliga games,” he added, when asked if he ought to be considered for Germany’s World Cup squad this summer.

“I can still remember when I was 20 and had a good season, Helmut Schon [then West Germany coach] took me aside and said: ‘Mr. Hoeness, if you keep playing like this, I’ll call you up for the next camp.’ — that was after one year.”

“And now, when he plays three Bundesliga games, he’s already being compared to Messi. So that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

Martin Odegaard

Dowman might well be football’s most famous, hyped 15-year-old since Arsenal’s current captain was signed by Real Madrid over a decade ago.

David Nielsen, Odegaard’s manager at Stromsgodset, likened him to both Messi and David Silva.

“At times you need a superstar and at 15, he’s the nearest thing we have,” Nielsen said.

Odegaard’s agent Kent Karlsen later revealed that the one-time child prodigy was influenced by Messi, even modelling his game on the Barcelona icon.

“Martin studied Messi when he was young, he tried to imitate his movements, passes and vision,” Karlsen said.

“Messi is the best player in the world, but when you see Odegaard play you can see things from that learning process and study that he did when he was little.”