Published on Apr 30, 2025
Lamine Yamal overcame a last gasp injury scare to keep his spot in the Barcelona starting XI for their Champions League semifinal first leg against Inter.
Yamal appeared to slip when shooting towards the end of Barcelona's pre-match warm up at the Olympic Stadium and departed for the locker room before his teammates. Television cameras showed the 17-year-old nursing an issue on his left groin or thigh and with barely a quarter of an hour until kick off doubts began to emerge as to whether the youngster would be able to start.
However Yamal did indeed take the field, his 100th game for Barcelona coming two and a half months before his 18th birthday. The youngster has been one of European football's outstanding wingers this season and there will be extra pressure on both he and Raphinha given the ongoing absence of Robert Lewandowski, whose place at the tip of the attack is once more taken by Ferran Torres. The Barcelona XI is unchanged from the side that beat Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey final at the weekend.
Anyone who questioned whether a first Champions League semifinal might get to Yamal was doubtless disabused of the notion on Tuesday when the youngster conducted the pre-match press conference ahead of Inter's visit. "Fear while playing the game? I left all my fears in the park of my neighbourhood, back in Mataro, a while ago," he said.
Yamal is one of several graduates from the Barcelona academy playing in the semifinal XI tonight and said of his dreams of winning the trophy: "We want Barca to win and to be among the best in business. You can see that feeling in our team, it's a dream for us and it has a lot to do with our performance this season. We remember when the club won the Champions League in 2015 and we don't only play because that's our job -- we also feel the colours of this football club."
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