Lamine Yamal: Barcelona don’t fear Real Madrid like other teams
Lamine Yamal has told ESPN that Barcelona don’t fear Real Madrid like other teams do after the Catalan club won a fourth consecutive Clásico to move to the brink of the LaLiga title. Yamal, 17, scored Barça’s second goal as they recovered from conceding two early Kylian Mbappé strikes to win a remarkable game 4-3 at the Olympic Stadium, moving seven points clear of Madrid with just three matches to play. Barça, who lost all three Clásico’s last season, have now beaten Madrid four times since the start of the campaign, twice in LaLiga and in both the Spanish Supercopa and Copa del Rey finals. “It doesn’t feel good when Madrid beat you,” Yamal told ESPN after the victory. “It’s true we didn’t beat them last year, we suffered, and this year we gave everything to turn it around. “We don’t have that fear of them that maybe other teams have against them. So we gave it our all. We feel like we’re better than every other team, that’s the mentality we go out with. “I think that’s how you have to play against them. You have to show up like you’re the better team and enjoy yourself, that’s it.” Barça coach Hansi Flick praised Yamal’s mature performance in helping the team come from two goals behind for the seventh time this season, saying “believe me, he’s definitely not a kid.” Yamal then kept a promise to swap shirts with former Barça forward Thierry Henry, who joined the Blaugrana in 2007, the same year the teenager was born. Henry had asked Yamal for his shirt during a recent interview, with the Barça winger saying he would give him one if he received one in exchange. Lamine Yamal insists that Barcelona aren’t afraid of Real Madrid like other teams. Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesBarça’s brilliance in attack with Yamal has often contrasted with problems in defence, with the team having to come from behind on several occasions this season. In the last month alone, they have found themselves two goals down against Inter Milan twice, Celta Vigo and now Real Madrid. Forward Dani Olmo said they know they have elements of their game to improve, but insists there is an unerring conviction that they can always find their way back into matches. “At the end, we need to control it a little bit more, the first minutes, because in the last games we concede a lot of goals,” Olmo told ESPN. “But we know we are going to come back. We know our power in offence, but sometimes we need to control more this situation better. “We cannot concede every game the first goal or two goals or whatever. We have to keep working on that, but at the end, very happy for the win, it was very important.” After opening up a seven-point lead at the top of the table, Barça could win the league as early as Wednesday, if Madrid drop points against Mallorca, or on Thursday, when they travel to city rivals Espanyol. Meanwhile, goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny has confirmed he’s received an offer to extend his contract, which expires this summer, by an additional two years. Szczęsny — who came out of retirement last October when Marc-André ter Stegen, who is now fit again, got injured — says he will take some time to think about the decision with his family. “I won’t hide that I have an offer to stay at Barça for two more years,” he confirmed to Canal Plus. “I have asked for time to think about it. I need to make the decision with my family based on what’s best for us. “My partner makes most of the life decisions, I have no shame in admitting that. In football, I make [career] decisions as a professional, but this is an unusual situation. “We decided to come here for a year to fulfil a dream and then get back to playing golf, so I don’t know what will happen now. I am honest about that.”
