BERLIN — Neither of them appear to run with the ball, they each glide with it. They do not kick the factor, they manipulate it, bend it to their will, with actual tempo and weight — so correct that they could as nicely have picked it up and put it on the spot they supposed.
Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal. Simply two superstars making ready for a significant closing on Sunday. Separated by 5,000 miles and 20 years. Related by their respective excellence, by the potential of this being a passing the baton second, and by their roots at a soccer expertise manufacturing facility past something the world has ever seen.
The day after his seventeenth birthday, Yamal’s first worldwide trophy could are available in Berlin, when Spain meets England within the closing of Euro 2024. Three weeks after he turned 37, what could also be Messi’s closing nationwide group accolade might arrive in Miami, the place Argentina takes on Colombia within the closing of the Copa América.
However the threads linking each careers, the all-time GOAT-contending, eight-time Ballon d’Or-winning, common approval-gaining Messi masterpiece, and the fledgling one being touted as perhaps, simply perhaps, adequate to be someday talked about in the identical breath because it, come from a hallowed soccer spot.
La Masia.
Barcelona’s famed academy is the place each mega abilities emerged. It’s, in its truest sense, it’s a 300-year-old farmhouse subsequent to the legendary Camp Nou stadium, used to accommodate children in search of to interrupt via as Barça professionals down the years.
In broader phrases, it’s now used to explain the academy basically, and it has taken on a mythological standing, the place the key spells are handed down, the place particular soccer is performed and taught. A sure manner, the Barça manner.
It’s the place Messi moved to from Rosario, Argentina, on the age of 13 and realized find out how to take his exceptional expertise and switch it into one thing unstoppable. And it’s the place a child from the impoverished Rocafonda part of Catalonia grabbed Barcelona’s consideration on the age of six. He was taken in, ingested the membership’s methods and strategies, and outstripped all the opposite most proficient children by a lot that that they had no alternative however to place him within the first group whereas he was nonetheless simply 15.
It is not by probability that Messi turned maybe the very best participant ever to tug on a pair of cleats or that Yamal has taken these Euros by storm. La Masia is an thought as a lot as a location, a philosophy, the place technical excellence at a unprecedented degree is cultivated after which demanded.
“I’ve advised my mother that if we win I do not need any presents,” Yamal advised Marca. What a journey. He isn’t simply youthful than anybody to ever play or rating in these championships, however now perhaps about to get a winner’s medal as a birthday present.
Messi needed to wait till three years in the past for his first trophy with Argentina, and it got here within the Copa América, earlier than then including a World Cup for good measure. If he performs one other Copa it is going to be past his fortieth birthday.
“I wish to win the Euros and for Messi to win the Copa América in order that we are able to meet,” Yamal advised reporters. The winner of every respective competitors meets within the Finalissima later this 12 months.
[RELATED: Comparing a 16-year-old to Pelé and Messi is ridiculous — unless it’s Lamine Yamal]
No matter occurs with Yamal, and historical past tells us there ae no positive issues in soccer, the pair will at all times be linked, after all. There’s that picture we have all seen by now; Messi bathing the child Yamal as a part of a UNICEF photoshoot. Then there’s simply the straightforward indisputable fact that nobody since Messi has appeared this good, this younger.
But it’s the manner they view the sport, that they appear to see it a beat forward of everybody else, the place each motion has a objective, that really binds them. With England having been inflexible and disjointed on its left flank at instances, they see right-winger Yamal as their most regarding risk going into Sunday. Messi is what Colombia is most involved about, too, as a result of, nicely, he is Lionel Messi.
La Masia graduates pack the annals of the game. In addition to Messi, there’s Xavi Hernandez and Andrés Iniesta, and the trendy teaching maestro that’s Pep Guardiola. And Sergio Busquets, and Carles Puyol, and Gerard Piqué, and goodness is aware of what number of extra to come back.
For some time at the least, you might even see extra come into the highlight. Barcelona has been hit with monetary sanctions that curb the amount of cash it is ready to lavish on new expertise.
Whereas Actual Madrid is again in big-spend mode and has simply landed Kylian Mbappé, Barça is more and more probably to make use of its shares of academy gold mud for some time. This technology of La Masia has already produced common starters for Spain, together with Yamal, Pedri, Gavi and, the Euro 2024’s main scorer, Dani Olmo.
Yamal, the brightest of that bunch, is true now the shining star of the second most essential soccer match on the planet.
And the embodiment of a tradition which is felt and revered across the soccer world, maybe by no means extra so than on Sunday.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports activities. Comply with him on Twitter @MRogersFOX.
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