Barça upset by De la Fuente's 'Maradona, Messi, Lamine Yamal' comments

Barcelona are upset with Luis de la Fuente. While Barça are trying to take care of Lamine Yamal in both sporting and media terms, the Spanish coach made statements on Friday regarding the young talent that have not gone down well with the Catalan club. They understand that there was no bad faith, but they consider the national coach's discourse to be erroneous.

During his press conference on Friday, De la Fuente referred to Lamine as follows: "We have to look after Lamine because he is young, but when Messi and Maradona were 16 years old, to question them playing now would seem sacrilegious with hindsight."

The Spain coach had no qualms about comparing the young forward with the two greatest players in the history of football.

Xavi's take

Xavi has already set out the line to follow with the young player

De la Fuente's message has not gone down well at Can Barça, where they consider that he is not doing Lamine any favours by putting him in the same sentence as Messi or Maradona. In fact, not even a week ago Xavi expressed himself in the completely opposite direction.

"We're not doing Lamine any favours by comparing him to Messi. It's true that the expectations are enormous, he's proving it, but we'll see the future. But comparing him to Messi... we've already seen that all the players who have been compared to Messi haven't done well", said Xavi ahead of Barça's clash against Porto.

And the fact is that the coach is not only trying to protect Lamine from the media, but also from a sporting point of view. Xavi recalled that the winger is still in a phase of growth and that entails certain penalties on a physical level. That is why the coach is dosing Lamine's starts.

Renewal

Not only that. The club also thinks about not overexposing the attacker. Recently, Lamine signed his contract renewal until 2026, but he did so in a private ceremony at the Ciudad Deportiva. Unlike Balde, who had extended his contract a few days earlier, the signing of Yamal's renewal was not open to the media.

There is little point, Barça believe, in them trying to keep the media pressure off the young winger if there are those who then have no qualms about comparing him to Messi or Maradona.