Yamal's Stats in 2025/26:

• 25 goals and 20 assists (45g/a) across all competitions.
• The World's Best Playmaker and Creator: 132 total chances created alongside a world-leading 52 big chances created. Unfortunately only has 20 assists from it.
• The World's Greatest Dribbler (270 completed dribbles) with Doku in 2nd with 210.
• Most Man of the Match Awards in Europe (12 awards) beating Kane and Haaland (11).

Yamal's Trophies and Individual Awards in 2025/26:

• FIFA World Cup Champion (with Spain) 🏆
• LaLiga Champion (with FC Barcelona) 🏆
• Supercopa de España Winner (with FC Barcelona) 🏆
• LaLiga Player of the Season (MVP)
• LaLiga Team of the Season
• 3x LaLiga Player of the Month

Usually I despise football rating apps but...

• LaLiga's Top Performer: Finished the domestic campaign with a 7.93 Sofascore rating and an 8.33 FotMob rating, making him the highest-rated player in Spain.
• Champions League: Earned the highest overall rating in the entire tournament with an 8.08 Sofascore rating, beating out Kylian Mbappé (8.05) and Harry Kane (7.94). Only 2nd on Fotmob tho behind Mbappe.

Historical Milestones made this season by Yamal (These don't count towards the Balon d'Or but I put it anyway. Ik how people feel about bringing up Yamal's age).

• Became the first teenager in football history to win both the EURO and the World Cup before turning 20 years old.
• Officially became the youngest European player in football history to win a World Cup at 19 years and 6 days old.
• Became the youngest player in the 21st century to score a LaLiga hat-trick (vs. Villarreal) and start a FIFA World Cup Final.

He's the only World Cup Winner to have such a cabinet this season. The Balon d'Or must go to a World Cup winner.

• Rodri has a strong case but his club campaign wasn't the best. Lacking statistically and missed out on the Prem which is more important than the FA Cup and the other one City won.
• Kane has a strong case because he broke Ronaldo's highest scoring season. But didn't make it to the WC Final and he ghosted in half of his World Cup games.
• Olise has a strong case because he broke Messi and Pele's assist record but Yamal still created way more chances and big chances for his teamamtes. It's easier when you play with Mbappe, Kane and Diaz.
• Mbappe has a strong case because he's the first to win 3 golden boots this season (La Liga, UCL and World Cup). But it's his second trophyless season so yeah... If it was about stats we know who should've won last year, but it's about trophies.
• Watch Fabian Ruiz finish 3rd because he won the UCL and World Cup.

imo, griezmann's time at barcelona is one of the clearest examples of a world class player being signed without a clear tactical plan. the problem was never his quality. it was the inability of the coaches to build a role that maximized his strengths.

griezmann had spent years at atlético madrid thriving as a second striker, false 9, or free attacking playmaker. his game was built around dropping between the lines, linking midfield and attack, making intelligent off the ball runs, pressing relentlessly, and arriving late into the box. he was never a touchline winger whose game depended on constant dribbling or isolating fullbacks.

instead of creating a role around those qualities, barcelona's coaches repeatedly used him as a left winger simply because messi occupied the right and suárez remained the central striker. in doing so, they tried to make him fill the tactical void left by neymar rather than letting him create his own identity in the team. playing so wide isolated him from the areas where he influenced games the most and drastically reduced his involvement in possession.

griezmann's football iq would have made him an ideal partner for players like pedri. both thrive on quick combinations, positional rotations and intelligent movement. griezmann could have operated beside an advanced midfielder, underneath the striker, or even as a false 9 dropping deep to connect play while allowing runners to attack the space ahead of him. his movement would also have complemented messi by creating passing lanes, occupying defenders and covering for messi defensively whenever possession was lost.

his work rate was another massively underused weapon. griezmann remained one of the hardest working forwards in europe, constantly pressing, tracking back and sacrificing himself for the team even when deployed out of position. those qualities were valuable for balancing a side built around messi's creative freedom, yet they were often treated as secondary instead of becoming part of the team's tactical identity.

the biggest failure was not griezmann's performances but the lack of tactical imagination. barcelona signed one of the world's best roaming forwards and then asked him to imitate a natural left winger. rather than adapting the system to suit an elite footballer, they forced the footballer to fit a system that never suited him. that was a coaching failure far more than a player failure.

Hi,

At the end of august me and my friends will be in Barcelona for a wedding and we would also like to visit the game against Rayo Vallecano on august 31st.

I want to buy 4 tickets but I need a membership which costs 113,- only to see if there are still tickets available...

Can anyone tell me if there are still tickets available and what it costs before I just throw away 113,- feels kinda like a gamble😂

So 4 tickets, next to each other but 2-2 is also an option:)

Kind of like Mane in the second half of the 21/22 season for Liverpool.

Because as things stand we have only one proper 9 in Ferran, and Olmo/Fermin aren't great 9s either even if they can put in some shifts there when needed. Raphinha could theoretically play there but he's better as a LW anyways.

Which brings me to Gordon. Obviously he was bought to help rotate Raphinha and be our LW for hypothetical post Raphinha Barca whenever he wants to leave, but I do see potential for him to be a pacy Mane esque 9. He's athletic and good at attacking the box. He can run in the behind quickly too and could be the fastest player in our squad now (along with Balde and Raphinha).

I see the vision where he mainly plays LW but switches to the 9 when Ferran isn't playing.

I used to be one of those people who believed we should do whatever it takes to get Alvarez but now? Idc anymore tbh. If Atleti don’t want to sell they can keep him. It will be fun seeing how much Alvarez will sink his market value.

We have Lamine, Raphinha, Gordon, Adeyemi, Fermin, Ferran and Olmo all collectively capable of scoring at least 85 goals across all comps (that’s a lowball btw) + Tunkara (who I am looking forward to seeing), Shane, Hamza and Bisiwu coming through. All we need is a ball playing striker with a high ceiling who’s capable of scoring at least 15 La Liga goals next season who fits our pressing system.

The way we have operated this transfer window has reduced the need for us to get Alvarez. So yeah Atleti €100m take it or leave it. Not signing Alvarez leaves us with more ffp space to further strengthen the squad in defence anyways.

So yes I expect this squad to be treble contenders next season with or without Alvarez. I heard Fab saying we are starting to make calls to our alternatives and Montfort talking about Laporte so things are ticking along just fine.

Hi guys, I really need your help. I want to come to Spain to Barcelona and watch the el classico with my father around October. The only problem are the tickets. My father says we won't go unless the tickets are under 300 euros. Now I've been looking and presale prices are 700+ euros as much as I've seen. And when I look on the offical barca site it says i cant just buy the regular tickets because I'm not a member but the ticket is more expenicve but it includes tickets to the museum, some subscriptions... Now to be honest, I don't really care where I sit, as long as I can see the players and the tickets are as I said under 300 euros. I'm also afraid that once the tickets are out that they are going to be sold out in a flash, because I mean, it's an el classico. So can someone please help me, tell me how when and where to buy the tickets, and when thease tickets are even going to be published because if I get the tickets I also have to buy a flight and those aren't cheap either. So please Culers, help!!!!!

I posted earlier about how unexpectedly bad I felt after the final. After reading the comments, I kept thinking about why it affected me so much.

I don’t think it was only because Messi lost.

Before the World Cup, I wasn’t expecting much from Argentina. I followed them because of Messi, but I also supported Spain. He had already won a World Cup. For once, I thought we could simply watch without begging the football gods to give him the one trophy that would finally end every debate around him.

Then Messi started playing.

Watching him compete at 39, produce decisive moments and carry Argentina through another World Cup brought back a feeling I hadn’t experienced in years. For a few weeks, it felt like watching the Messi of Guardiola’s Barça again.

That team belonged to an important period of my life. Guardiola, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Busquets, Messi... they were not only footballers I admired. They were part of the years when I was younger, building my adult life and feeling that almost everything was still ahead of me.

The strange thing is that you rarely notice an era ending while it happens.

Puyol retires, and it feels normal. Piqué retires, and you think it was simply his time. Then Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets and almost everyone else from your generation slowly disappear from the highest level.

It doesn’t happen as one dramatic ending. It happens quietly, one player at a time, while your own life is passing just as quickly.

And then, somehow, Messi is still there.

You can see the years in his face and in the way he moves. You recognize some of that aging in yourself. But he is still competing against players who grew up watching him, still deciding World Cup matches, still producing moments that seem impossible at his age.

He became the last active connection to that period. As long as Messi was still out there doing extraordinary things, it felt like our generation had not completely left the stage.

For a few weeks, he made me feel young again.

Not young in the way we were twenty years ago, but not finished either. He made it feel possible to enter a world increasingly occupied by younger people and still matter. To adapt, compete and prove that many important things may still be ahead of us.

I think that is why I became so invested as Argentina kept advancing.

I genuinely did not need Messi to win the final. I thought Spain were the better team and would probably win. I went to watch the match wearing a Barça shirt rather than either national team’s shirt because I believed I could accept either ending.

What hurt was not that he lost.

It was that, in what may have been his last World Cup match, Argentina never gave him the chance to show what he had spent the rest of the tournament proving he could still be.

He was not suddenly incapable. We had just watched him decide matches and carry responsibility at 39. But in the final he was isolated, surrounded and starved of any real way to influence the game. The team could not compete well enough to let him express himself.

I kept waiting for one moment: an impossible pass, a run, anything that would allow us to recognize the Messi we had watched throughout the tournament. It never came.

And when Argentina could no longer compete through football, some players lost control. The unnecessary fouls, the sending-off and the ugly scenes after the final whistle made the ending feel unworthy of the occasion.

Messi deserved a team capable of giving him one last fight. If Spain were better, Argentina could lose, congratulate them and allow the final image to be one of respect for what he had achieved at 39.

Instead, his last and most important match became the one game in which he could not show what he still was, followed by teammates who could not lose with dignity.

Even Messi’s moment with Cucurella bothered me. It felt low and unusual for him. But I don’t expect him to be perfect. It was probably his final World Cup match, his team was struggling and the pressure must have been overwhelming. Under those circumstances, perhaps I would have reacted the same way or worse.

It simply removed the last possibility of a clean and dignified farewell.

Then, almost immediately, that one ugly night became another excuse online to reduce his career to accusations, conspiracy theories and the behavior of people around him. Some criticism of the final was deserved. But twenty years of resilience, extraordinary football and generally honorable conduct should not be flattened into the worst images of one night.

For a few weeks, Messi had made the past feel present again.

He made me feel that the person I was during those Barça years was still somewhere inside me. That people our age still belonged in the middle of the story, rather than only remembering it.

Then the final ended, and I understood something I had not been prepared to feel.

That era was not slowly ending anymore.

It had already ended. The kids half my age are the new world champions.

Messi had simply allowed me not to notice for a little longer.

This is his stats compared to Fabio Cannavaro Ballon D'or winning world cup campaign. In my opinion the only competition or argument that can be made against him is by Messi or Rodri.

As a Barça fan, I honestly felt this was the best possible final for me.

On one side, Spain: a national team I have always liked and supported back in 2010, now built around so many players connected to this new Barça generation. On the other side, Messi, the greatest player in our club’s history, having another incredible World Cup at 39.

Because Messi had already won a World Cup, I thought I would be happy either way. Spain winning would feel special, and Messi winning again would be another legendary ending. I expected to watch the final almost as a neutral and simply enjoy it.

But as the match went on, I realized that was impossible.

The first thing I felt was that the anti-Messi and anti-Argentina narrative that had followed them throughout the tournament was getting stronger with every minute. I thought most of that narrative had been exaggerated or completely dishonest: the claims that FIFA was helping Messi, that Argentina only won because of referees, that everything was fixed for them. The final itself actually disproved a lot of that.

But then came the unnecessary fouls, Enzo losing control, and especially the scenes after the final whistle. That gave people exactly the images they needed to say they had been right all along, even if many of their previous accusations had little basis.

The second thing I realized was that, no matter how much sympathy I have for Spain, watching Messi lose will always hurt more. After everything he has given to football and to Barça, I wanted his last World Cup match to end with dignity, even in defeat.

Argentina could have lost to a clearly superior Spain, accepted it, congratulated them, and still walked away with people appreciating what Messi had achieved at 39. Instead, several of his teammates completely ruined the tone of the ending. They damaged the image of what had actually been a beautiful, dramatic and memorable tournament for Argentina, and unfortunately Messi’s reputation gets dragged into it because he is the face and captain of the team.

That is what bothers me most. Messi did not deserve that ending.

Spain deserved to win, and I am happy for the Barça players involved. But I wish the final had ended in a completely different atmosphere: Argentina losing with dignity, Spain celebrating, and everyone being able to applaud what Messi had just done at 39 years old.

I mean like how did you feel knowing that it was specifically a Barca player that scored the winning goal, not only that 8 of our players are World Cup champions. Also how do you feel about yamal being the favorite for the ballon d’or again?