Yamal on par with Vinicius Jr’s best season at 17

Lamine Yamal scored again in Sunday’s La Liga match against Villarreal, Barca’s last home game of the season, finding the net with his trademark curler. In a glorious campaign for the Catalans, who completed a domestic treble, Yamal has been vital, stepping up for his side at the most crucial moments. And doing so while only being 17.

The Spaniard has racked up 18 goals across all competitions for Barca this term, matching his tally with a whopping 21 assists. That brings his total for the season to 39 goal contributions, a figure that becomes more relevant compared to those of Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior.

Using the BeSoccer Pro data reveals that the Brazilian’s best season, numerically speaking, was in 2022-23 with Los Blancos. In that campaign, he scored 23 goals and provided 19 assists, bagging 42 goal contributions in total from 55 appearances distributed between 4,728 minutes. On the other hand, having played 54 matches, Yamal’s minutes are slightly lower (4,433).

In that sense, the 17-year-old is only 3 G/A away from Vinicius' best season of his career, while playing practically 300 fewer minutes. Their goal per minute are also extremely close, with the Merengues No. 7 narrowly ahead. A goal or assist every 113.67 minutes for Yamal in 2024/25, as opposed to Vinicius’ 112.57 in  2022-23.

Ahead in Spain, narrowly behind in Europe

In the Spanish top flight, the Barcelona right winger has 9 goals and 13 assists in 34 appearances this term, while the Real Madrid left-winger concluded the 2022-23 league campaign with 10 goals and 9 assists in 33 matches.

The same trend follows in the Copa del Rey: 2 goals and 5 assists for Yamal and 3 in each category for Vini. The Spanish Super Cup sees the La Masia product clearly on top, with his 2 goals in 2 games completely outclassing the then 22-year-old, who went blank in both clashes. 

Moving onto European football, Yamal made 13 Champions League appearances in 2024/25, scoring 5 times and setting up 3. But this is where Vinicius excelled, bagging 7 and 5 to seal in 12 games in the 2022-23 campaign

The Brazil international also played the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup during that season. He did not contribute to any goals or assists in the former competition, while the latter saw him register 3 goals and 1 assist in 2 games.

In sum, it is very even between the two, and that makes the Cule supporters dream big. If at 17 he has almost equalled what Vinicius Junior did at 22, Lamine Yamal's peak may be as unknown as it is terrifying.