Lamine Yamal is Ready for the Pressure. Are his Teammates? | OneFootball

Let’s recap Barcelona’s January and start of February. It consisted of:

The busy first month of the year resulted in the first trophy of the season with the Spanish Super Cup, and a spot in the top eight in the Champions League with a fortunate bye into the Round of 16. The two Copa del Rey wins earned them a spot in the semi-finals. The three wins and one loss has Barcelona holding onto a narrow one point lead in the La Liga table. With everything left to play for, now is the time in the season when the pressure really starts to bludgeon the nerves.

The most timely bout of this pressure will come in the semis of the Copa del Rey. The first leg takes place next Thursday against Atlético Madrid at the Metropolitano Stadium. It will likely be a Barcelona side without Pedri and Raphinha, who are both set to return prior to the reverse fixture on March 3 back at the Camp Nou.

Bolstered by their new January signings, Atléti dispatched Real Betis 5-0 in dominant fashion in the Copa del Rey quarters this week.

Ademola Lookman, fresh off a move from Atalanta, started the match and scored his 100th career goal.

The other two signings, youngsters Rodri Mendoza from Elche and Obed Vargas from the Seattle Sounders, also made their debuts off the bench.

With a league rematch set for Sunday with Real Betis, it could be another opportunity for Diego Simeone to fill his team with confidence ahead of their home fixture with the Blaugrana. The one argument for it being better to play Atlético Madrid over two legs instead of the one in the final is that two legs allow the better team more chances to avoid variance of a 90 minute hurricane.

In La Liga, holding onto that narrow one point lead, things may not be as simple as they seem for Hansi Flick either. Girona has found their form after a disastrous first part of the season, Levante is stuck in the relegation zone but they’ve only lost one of their last five, and Villarreal are in the top four for a reason. Athletic Club and Sevilla come after those three, and at that point Barcelona is back to juggle the Champions League campaign again.

Fortunately for Barcelona, Real Madrid are dealing with their own headaches. In league they face off against Valencia, Real Sociedad, Osasuna, and Getafe. They also have the two-legged Champions League play-off tie against Benfica coming up in the next month. Those are all opportunities for a disjointed Real Madrid side to drop points just as well as Barcelona could.

The best news for the Blaugrana is that despite questions around the rest of the squad, Lamine Yamal is rounding into form. His 238 successful take-ons are the most of any player this season in the top five leagues, and it’s not close. Jérémy Doku is second with 148.

Yamal seems to have shaken off the pubalgia that plagued him for much of the season, as he has now scored or assisted in six consecutive games. Prior to Mallorca, his total is up to 26 goal contributions in all competitions this season. Lamine Yamal will be ready for the pressure.

How the rest of his teammates deal with the pressure will dictate Barcelona’s upcoming success. Ferran Torres has to up his conversion rate, Dani Olmo and Fermín López need to continue their recent good form, and the backline must shore up their set-piece defending. That does seem like a laundry list for Hansi Flick to deal with, but it’s nothing that the manager is dealing with for the first time.

While Barcelona were unable to fortify the first team in January outside of João Cancelo, Deco did make some moves for the future. For more on those moves, check out The Barcelona Podcast’s recap: