Will that do? Lamine Yamal conjures another magical spell as Barça pass first test

The 19-year-old scored a cracker in Seville, days after his ‘almost rabona’ at Galatasaray, as La Liga leaders beat Real Betis

When at last it was time for Lamine Yamal to leave, the 19-year-old’s number going up before the 90th minute for only the second time since the opening day, Real Betis fans whistled him all the way to the touchline where Barcelona’s coach was waiting. His work here done, Hansi Flick invited him to take the weight off his feet and his shoulders, not that he wanted to. First, though, he took Lamine Yamal’s head in his hands and, leaning in away from the amateur lip readers, tried to make himself heard over the noise. “I told him I was proud of him because he played a fantastic game,” he said.

At least he could think of something. When Lamine Yamal had opened the scoring just nine minutes into the match that was supposed to find out how good Barcelona really were, it hadn’t been easy. Nothing erudite, anyway. On the morning that Barcelona went to Betis – first versus third, a proper opponent at last – Jorge Valdano had lamented that sometimes he doesn’t have the words, and he always has the words. Valdano had just watched Lamine do that, whatever that was, in Istanbul – an “almost rabona,” the kid called it – and now he had a problem. “If he keeps doing strange things, we’re not going to be able to explain it,” he wrote.