Frenkie De Jong said it plainly: "I don't think I'll ever see anyone else reach Lionel Messi's level again." He also said Lamine Yamal could become the best player in the world. He managed to hold both views without contradiction, and honestly, that's the only sane take here.
Because the numbers, taken at face value, are jarring. In his first three years across club and country, Yamal has racked up 57 goals and 55 assists in 176 appearances. Messi, over the same early window at Barcelona, managed 41 goals and 15 assists in 102 games. Raw comparison: Yamal wins. Comfortably.
Why the comparison isn't as clean as it looks
Messi made his debut at 17. Yamal made his at 15 — becoming the youngest player to appear in a LaLiga match in April 2023. That's two extra years of development compressed into the same three-season frame. Yamal is also playing in a modern game where pressing systems create more open transitions, data is tracked more granularly, and attacking width is weaponised differently than in the mid-2000s. Context doesn't erase the numbers, but it shapes them.
What's not in dispute: Yamal has been one of the best players in Europe at 17 and 18. Two LaLiga titles. A UEFA Euro with Spain. A Ballon d'Or runner-up finish in 2025 — behind Ousmane Dembele, which will raise eyebrows but reflects a strong collective season at Paris Saint-Germain. At his age, that recognition is borderline absurd.
Messi went on to score 672 goals and provide 303 assists in 778 Barcelona appearances. He won eight Ballons d'Or. The first three seasons were a prelude. That's the part Yamal still has ahead of him — and the part where this comparison either becomes legendary or simply interesting.
The injury problem Barcelona can't ignore
None of this matters in the short term anyway. Yamal is currently injured and out for the rest of the season. For a Barcelona side still chasing silverware, losing their most dangerous attacker is a problem that shifts the odds in every remaining competition they're involved in. Whoever they face in the final weeks of the campaign will know exactly what's missing from that right flank.
De Jong's words are worth sitting with: "Hopefully, Lamine Yamal can become the best player in the world." From a teammate who grew up watching Messi, that's not empty praise. It's a careful, specific ceiling — and it's still a ceiling most players never get close to.
