Barcelona coach Hansi Flick says Lamine Yamal can still go to another level after the teenager tormented Elche in Saturday’s 3-1 LaLiga victory.
Yamal, 18, scored for the fourth time in five games as Barça extended their lead at the top of the table to four points ahead of Real Madrid‘s match against Rayo Vallecano on Sunday.
Yamal, who now has nine league goals this season — matching his total from last year already — also created eight chances, including one which led to Marcus Rashford netting Barça’s third goal.
“It’s important for the team and for the club,” Flick said in a news conference when asked to sum up Yamal’s display at the Estadio Martínez Valero. “For everyone, it’s good when he plays on the top level. He’s young enough to improve, to have potential, to reach another level. I think it happens.”
Barça took the lead in the sixth minute when Yamal rounded goalkeeper Iñaki Peña, on loan at Elche from the Catalan side, but Álvaro Rodríguez drew the home team level after half an hour.
Ferran Torres‘ 12th LaLiga goal of the campaign restored Barça’s lead before the break and Rashford rounded off the win in the 72nd minute, taking his tally to 10 in all competitions since signing from Manchester United last summer.
However, it was remarkable it took the league leaders so long to kill the game off on a night when they accumulated an expected goals (xG) of 6.52, blitzing the previous highest xG of the Flick era, 5.09 against Mallorca in 2024.
Torres was the guiltiest of missing chances, racking up an xG of 3.0 on his own and twice hitting the crossbar, but Fermín López and Rashford also wasted openings, with Olmo also denied by the woodwork.
“Difficult question,” Flick laughed when asked if his side’s finishing had frustrated him. “It was important that we get three points today. We played a fantastic game except in the last metres of the pitch. “The good thing is we were switched on from the very beginning of the match, and we created a lot of chances. But we missed them; this is the bad thing.” Flick also downplayed any fears over Raphinha and Jules Koundé, who were both unable to finish the game, suggesting they were withdrawn as a precaution more than anything. Midfielder Frenkie de Jong, meanwhile, said Barça still have plenty of room to improve as they continue to compete on three fronts — LaLiga, Copa del Rey and Champions League — after controlling the midfield in Pedri‘s absence. “I still don’t think we’ve reached our best football, but we’re playing as a team,” he told reporters after the win. “We generated a lot of chances tonight, which is good, because usually we have players that finish well, today maybe not so well, but it’s three points more, which is important. “It was just unlucky because we have seen all season that we have players who score a lot of goals. If you keep creating those chances, you’re going to win games.”
