Five games, five wins, and a nineteen-year-old doing things that only one other player has managed in La Liga this century. Barcelona won 4-2 at Levante on Sunday, Lamine Yamal scored either side of half-time, and the gap at the top of the table is now three points.
Two of those goals, one from open play and one from the spot, took Yamal into a scoring bracket that Lionel Messi occupies and Cristiano Ronaldo never reached in Spain. That sentence gets written about him more often than it should about anyone his age.
How Barcelona Won It
Levante did not roll over, and two goals conceded says as much. But Yamal's first put Barcelona in front and his penalty after the interval settled the direction of travel. Once the visitors were two clear, the game only ever went one way.
Xavi Espart and Karim Adeyemi added the others. Espart's goal carried its own small story: another nineteen-year-old academy graduate on the scoresheet alongside Yamal, which is exactly the production line Barcelona keep insisting they still have.
The Messi Comparison, Carefully
Comparisons to Messi are usually lazy. This one is arithmetic. Yamal has now reached a La Liga goalscoring standard at his age that, since 2000, only Messi has matched. Ronaldo, for all that he did at Real Madrid, arrived in Spain too late in his career to be part of that conversation.
What matters more than the record is the manner. Yamal is taking penalties, carrying the team in away fixtures that could go wrong, and scoring in games where Barcelona are not at their best. Those are the habits of a senior player, not a prospect.
Three Points Clear and Counting
Barcelona sit alone at the top with fifteen points from fifteen available, three ahead of Real Madrid. Nobody wins a title in September, and the fixture list will get considerably harder. What a start like this buys is margin, and the ability to lose an awkward away game later without the season changing shape.
For now the numbers are simple. Five played, five won, and the best teenager in the world game getting better roughly every fortnight.
Match facts: Levante 2-4 Barcelona, Sunday 13 September 2026. Barcelona scorers: Lamine Yamal (2, one penalty), Xavi Espart, Karim Adeyemi. Barcelona have won all five La Liga matches and lead Real Madrid by three points. Yamal is 19.
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