It seems that Yamal is now for zhe first timebin career facing new challenges when the opponents know what he will do with the ball.
Young players usually have to go through a few stages in their career:
Stage 1: you are a new kid and the opponent don't take you seriously and they give you tons of time and space
Stage 2: opponents have realized that you are dangerous but haven't yet fully figured out your attacking patterns and how to successfully stop you
Stage 3: opponents figure out your attacking patterns and start to neutralize you. Once when someone figures out the way how to stop you, other teams copy those solutions and suddenly everyone plays in the same way against you.
Stage 4: a player overcomes stage 3 and finds several different attacking solutions to make his game harder to neutralize.
Yamal, like any young player, has been playing in the stages 1 and 2 till now.
Maybe the matches against Inter and Portugal are signs that he is entering into a stage 3 of his career.
Regarding some other players in our recent history, for example Frenkie and Arthur had a very successful stages 1 and 2 when they were getting tons of time and space to do whatever they want.
But for example, once when the opponents figured out main Frenkie's patterns, he became average and never managed to reach the level of his early days at Ajax.
The same happened with Arthur, his press resistance looked awesome at Brazil and during his first few months at Barca.
But once when the opponents learned to not to run at him like kamikazes, he became sterile and average.
My point: they never managed to raise their game to a higher level once when their natural attacking patterns got figured out.
It seems that Yamal is now for the first time in his career facing new challenges when the opponents know what he will do with the ball.
And eventually he'll need additional attacking patterns to make himself less predictable vs highest level of opponents.
His last 30 minutes vs Inter was a textbook example of stuborness and being predictable:
1) get the ball on the right flank
2) try to cut inside and shoot with the left foot
3) if you can't do that, go to the right, try to dribble past three opponents and cross
4) don't pass to your teammates unless if you are in a bad situation
5) repeat the same pattern for 30 minutes and hope it will work once
Perfectly summed up. Fixed narratives, hides for months until he can cherry pick an example or two that fits said narrative.Very few players can stop him even if they know what he is going to do. Nuno Mendes is one of them and might be the only one, and even Nuno Mendes was getting cooked by him last year.
So it's not like he's always getting the better of Lamine.
We also saw how both the Portuguese LW and LB were back to defend vs. Lamine who didn't even have support from his own RB that was afraid of overlapping or got instructions to not do it.
The issue with your analysis from day one is that you have this one set idea about how XYZ player is, his development, mentality, etc.
You disregard the context behind the performance(s) and overlook how that X player have done and what he has done for 99% of the time otherwise.
You don't analyze because that requires context. You just wait for a moment that fits your initial idea of how a player is supposed to be or what he is. Even if you have to wait for months for it![]()
yes we knowIn terms of style profile, Yamal dribbles like a left footed neymar
https://x.com/ibrnood/status/1911997980640477272?s=46&t=ao6WAWV-mxOqweJNGVJkMQ
Im not always here and i saw some mahrez shouts so i thought I’d chip in with thatyes we know