Lamine Yamal continues to follow in Lionel Messi's footsteps, as he chooses the Argentine's former squad number at Barcelona.
Barcelona youngster Lamine Yamal has officially been promoted to the first team and has now been assigned a new squad number, which has been worn by a few Blaugrana greats in the past.
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Yamal earns first-team promotion
Yamal made his Barcelona debut at age 15 in the 2022/23 season. However, it was in the following campaign that he truly broke out. Within the 2023/24 season, the Spanish national established himself as the starting right-winger for Barcelona, deposing the more seasoned Raphinha to the bench or forcing him to be deployed in a lesser-fancied right-wing position.
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The youngster has now taken up an allocation within the first team, given his new status, and due to LALIGA rules, it meant he had to ditch his previous shirt number ‘27’, and be assigned a value between 1–25.
Yamal handed new number
The Blaugrana announced today, via a series of creative social media posts and a website publication, that Yamal will wear the number 19 jersey next season.
Yamal's promotion to first-team status has been anticipated; hence, his number for the next campaign has been a topic of contention in Catalan media. With the club looking for a way out for Ansu Fati, many believe Yamal should inherit the number 10 jersey. However, a separate faction argued the weight of the jersey might sore his teenage shoulders.
Yamal himself has been asked if he would like to take up what is dubbed ‘Lionel Messi's No. 10’, and although he suggested he is keen, he respectfully stated that the shirt belonged to Fati.
The club decided to go with another number famously worn by Lionel Messi, ‘19’, the second of the three numbers imprinted on his shirt across his Barcelona career, and also the Argentine’s first as a first-team player.
A lot of parallels have been drawn between Messi and Yamal, and the number becomes another point of similarity. Other than Messi, former Barcelona great Patrick Kluivert wore 19. More recently, the number has been worn by Sergio Aguero, Ferran Torres and Franck Kessie.
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