17-year-old Barcelona star has a chance to beat his idol Neymar at San Mames | OneFootball

FC Barcelona have already secured the La Liga title, but they still have one game left to play before the end of this league campaign and the 2024-25 season in general.

This game, against Athletic Club, is set to be played this Sunday, and although the result of the match would not have any impact on the Blaugranes’ league standings, the team would still be fighting for some team and individual challenges.

Lamine Yamal can overtake Neymar

One such challenge involves the young forward Lamine Yamal, who has emerged as one of the best players in Europe this season, despite still only being 17 years of age.

As Mundo Deportivo has reported, in this upcoming match at San Mames, the youngster can overtake one of his biggest idols, Neymar Jr., in terms of successful dribbles completed this season.

Currently, the Spaniard has 159 successful dribbles to his name in La Liga, while in all competitions, this number rises to 239.

His idol, the Brazilian Neymar, also had 239 successful dribbles to his name in his last season at Barcelona, 2016-17. This was the highest number of successful dribbles he accumulated in a single season with the Catalan side.

On the other hand, Yamal has completed 239 of the 448 total dribbles he attempted this season, registering a dribbling success rate of 53.3%.

Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal. [Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images]

Still some way off from Messi’s numbers

With only one successful dribble against the Basque Lions, the La Masia graduate will overtake Neymar’s best number. However, he is still some way far off from the best dribbler in Barcelona history, i.e., Lionel Messi.

The Argentine completed more than 250 dribbles three times during his Blaugrana career, i.e., 2017-18 (253), 2019-20 (260), and 2014-15 (307).

However, still only 17 years of age, Lamine Yamal has a lot of time to reach these numbers as well, and hopefully, he will not take long to do so.