A teen with no desire to be Messi: How Lamine Yamal is forging own path

Asked at a World Cup advertisement launch to name the best player of the new generation he said: "It would be Lamine. No doubt about it: for me, he is the best."

That same week, American television network CBS asked Lamine Yamal on camera whether Spain would win the World Cup. He smiled and said "Yes".

What makes Spain wonderkid Lamine Yamal genuinely remarkable is not merely the praise being heaped upon him; it is the composure with which he carries it, and the clarity with which he is already shaping his own identity as a footballer and as a man.

He is 18 years old. He has already played in a Champions League semi-final, won a European Championship, and he has been given the number 10 shirt at Barcelona that Messi wore for almost 15 years. Yet the most striking thing about him is not the precocity. It is the serenity.

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The comparison to Messi arrives whether Lamine Yamal wants it or not.

For one thing, they are both left-footed, and the youngster's game is blessed with the same dribbling intelligence, the same deceptive ease, that makes the difficult look inevitable.

In fact, he has had a much bigger influence than Messi at the same age, but it would be premature to suggest he can get to the same level.