Is Lamine Yamal at risk of burnout? Spain vs Barcelona row shows increasingly injury-prone wonderkid must be better protected to reach his huge potential - and have the chance to match Lionel Messi

For all his understandable excitement, though, Lineker felt compelled to add a word of warning, pointing out that Yamal had already played more than 100 games for Barcelona before the age of 18 - which, in his eyes, was as concerning as it was impressive. "It worries me slightly that they might burn him out,"

Regrettably, Yamal's workload has become an even bigger talking point over the past six months, culminating in a very public row breaking out between Barca boss Hansi Flick and his Spain counterpart Luis de la Fuente over the forward's latest injury issue...

A 16-year-old superstar

Yamal was just 15 years, nine months and 16 days old when he made his Barcelona debut against Betis on 29 April 2023. By the turn of the year, though, he was a first-team regular. Indeed, he sat out just one of Barca's 38 games during the 2023-24 Liga season and was involved in all 10 of their Champions League matches, starting seven of them.

His sensational performances for one of the biggest teams in Europe almost inevitably resulted in him being called up by Spain for Euro 2024. He was still only 16 at the time and had to bring school books with him to Germany to study for his exams - yet the braces-wearing winger taught Adrien Rabiot a harsh lesson about the perils of underestimating him during La Roja's thrilling tournament triumph.

There was no longer any hiding it or even playing it down. The hype was real. Yamal was already better than Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same age. Basically, not since Pele at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden had a teenager made such a spectacular and immediate impact on international football.

The problem, though, is that Yamal's importance to Barca and Spain has only grown over the past year, resulting in even more pressure being placed on a body that, as Lineker pointed out, is still developing.

Yamal featured in Barca's first 11 games of the 2024-25 season and the only match he didn't start, against Osasuna in La Liga, they lost. The youngster also played in Spain's first three Nations League games. However, after completing 90 minutes of the 1-0 win over Denmark on October 12, Yamal missed the meeting with Serbia three days later.

"Lamine had some discomfort at the end of the match at the weekend," De la Fuente said. "I spoke to him, and he told me that he thought he wouldn’t be 100 percent fit for Tuesday. When in doubt, we always bet on the health of the athlete."

Yamal returned to action for Barca after the international break but picked up an ankle injury that ruled him out of four games: two for his club (neither of which the Catalans won) and two for his country. Nonetheless, Yamal enjoyed a relatively pain-free second half of the season and ended up making 55 appearances for Barcelona in all competitions (five more than the previous campaign) before representing Spain at the Nations League finals.

It's worth noting at this point that Yamal felt little fatigue during the business end of the 2024-25 season, revealing that he was essentially taking a leaf out of Messi's book by conserving as much energy as possible during games for explosive bursts of brilliance.

"You have to know how to manage yourself during the game, during the season, to know during training what you have to do ... So I think that's something I've learned. And, to be honest, I am doing really well."

Unfortunately, that's no longer the case and the question is who's to blame?