Inter coach Simone Inzaghi on Wednesday lavished praise on Barcelona’s teenage winger Lamine Yamal after a thrilling 3-3 UEFA Champions League semi-final first-leg draw.
Yamal, 17, scored a superb solo goal in his 100th Barcelona game as the Catalans came back from two goals down and terrified Inter’s defense throughout.
“Yamal is clearly a talent of the type born every 50 years, talents like this I’ve never really seen before,” Inzaghi said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I saw him tonight for the first time and he created problems for us... [Our performance] is a reason for great pride, and Yamal is a phenomenon of the kind born every 50 years,” he said.
Inter kept Yamal quiet for some parts of the second half, which Inzaghi said was the objective after the teenager’s first-half display.
“We adjusted something, we had to be better on Yamal, which is not very simple,” he added.
Barcelona coach Hansi Flick also hailed winger Yamal, who rejected comparisons to all-time great Lionel Messi on the eve of the game, but scored a goal the Argentine would have been proud of.
“I’m really happy that this talent that comes every 50 years plays for Barca,” said Flick, when Inzaghi’s words were put to him.
The German coach said Yamal sparked his team’s comeback.
“Lamine in the first half was so important for us, he created so many positive things and got the first goal,” the German coach told reporters.
“He’s special, he’s a genius ... you see all the details and it’s unbelievable how he does this,” he added.
Yamal’s goal made him — at 17 years, 291 days — the youngest scorer in a Champions League semi-final.
He went so close to bettering that moments later when he glided past two defenders and sliced a shot from a sliver of an angle off the crossbar.
“This guy is incredible,” Manchester City striker Erling Haaland posted on SnapChat with a screenshot of Yamal’s shot off the bar.
Additional reporting by AP
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