Raphinha compares to Lamine Yamal to Barcelona legend who isn't Lionel Messi
- Raphinha and Lamine Yamal have been in excellent form for Barcelona this season
- Yamal's prolific start to his career in Catalonia has inspired plenty of comparisons to Lionel Messi
- Raphinha argued that his teammate shared more similarities with a different club icon
Barcelona forward Raphinha has looked beyond the many comparisons made between Lamine Yamal and Lionel Messi, instead likening the prodigious teenager to Neymar.
Raphinha and Yamal have been in brilliant form for Hansi Flick's Barcelona this season, firing the Catalan outfit to the top of La Liga. Both wingers were on target in the emphatic 4-0 thumping of Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu last month.
Yamal became Barcelona's all-time youngest goalscorer in Clasico history on that memorable evening, two days before he was crowned the best young player in the world at the 2024Ballon d'Or ceremony.
The left-footed La Masia graduate has been endlessly compared to Messi, another wriggling phenom to have graced Barcelona's red and blue stripes. However, Raphinha explained in a recent interview with El Pais why he saw more similarities between Yamal and Neymar.
"The most important thing [in football] is to know what you are going to do before the ball reaches you," the Brazilian forward outlined. "To have the whole field mapped out. You have to take your eye off the ball to look at everything that is happening around you. People who do that are geniuses."
Messi, who Raphinha claimed was "from another world", possessed that innate quality, but when asked if Yamal was following the Argentine's same path, he argued: "I see him more like Neymar.
"The dribbles, how quickly he thinks to dribble. When you think you can steal the ball from him, he does something you have never seen in your life."
Heading into Sunday's Catalan derby against Espanyol, Yamal had taken on his opponent an outrageous 81 times - more than any other player across Europe's top five leagues, per FBref.
Yamal attempts an average of 8.3 take-ons per game, a tally that Neymar only surpassed during his final season in Spain. Throughout his first three years in Barcelona, the fleet-footed trickster only recorded between six and seven dribbles on each outing.
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