TAFC: Lamine Yamal, because he's worth it; which Premier League fans can't get no satisfaction?

New York Times

2 days ago

Hello! At the age of 17, I was earning £2 an hour. What about you?
On the way:
How Barca aim to keep Yamal until 2031
Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, liked to think big but even he was blindsided by the overnight success of iTunes. It launched in 2003, projecting sales of one million songs in six months. The target was smashed in six days.
Lamine Yamal is football's iTunes equivalent; a commodity so successful that short-term expectations of him proved obsolete as soon as they were set. Yesterday, Yamal signed a new deal at Barcelona, a contract that could pay him £33.5million ($45m) a year. We'll get into the nuts and bolts of it in a second but what's more remarkable is the speed at which his earning power has soared.
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People around Yamal know they are managing a generational talent (see below for an example of his trademark finish). More than that, they're managing the heir to the Lionel Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo dynasty, and have a roadmap worked out.
When Yamal signed his previous Barca contract in 2023, his advisers negotiated a future extension there and then. It was set up to kick in when Yamal turned 18, in just over a month's time. Except the forward's sensational rise has left him woefully undervalued.
That original agreement would have been worth £8.4m a year (£162,000 a week) — a tidy sum for a teenager — but since it was agreed, Yamal has won Euro 2024 with Spain, magicked Barca to a La Liga and Copa del Rey double this season and trivela-d his way into Ballon d'Or contention. Many would class him as the world's best player, which he basically is.
Barca, to give the club their due, smelt the coffee and accepted that the previous terms negotiated with him were nowhere near market value. Yamal is one of those rare footballers who can basically name his price, with no incentive to undercut himself.
How much will he earn? Can Barca afford it?
Remember this Lamine Yamal gem vs Mallorca? #LaLigaHighlights #BarçaMallorca pic.twitter.com/Kwoag2oSQY
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) April 22, 2025
Pol Ballus has the lowdown on exactly what Yamal's new contract entails. His article underlines the extent to which Barca have pushed the boat out:
Pol's full analysis gives a handle on how mega this is. True, Yamal is trailing behind Lionel Messi, who coined it at £83m a season when he was at his Barca peak, but Yamal is barely old enough to drive.
It had Pol asking: if the teenager is destined to be the best of the best, what on earth will Barca be expected to pay him when this contract runs out when he is 24? The mind boggles.
Man arrested after Liverpool parade chaos
More details have emerged about the scary scenes at Liverpool's Premier League title parade, where a car knocked down and injured scores of supporters.
A police update yesterday raised the number hospitalised to 50, of whom 11 were continuing to receive treatment. Thankfully, all of the victims are stable. The 53-year-old driver of the car was detained at the scene on Monday and has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drugs.
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Investigators believe his Ford Galaxy entered Water Street, part of a long stretch of Liverpool closed off to general traffic, behind an ambulance that passed through a road block to treat an ill member of the public. The driver, who is from the West Derby area of the city, remains in custody.
For those who witnessed the incident, the trauma will take time to subside. The Athletic's Simon Hughes, a Liverpool fan, watched an earlier part of the parade and later spoke to some of those caught up in the panic. One fan, Mark Madden, said it 'destroyed what, until that point, had been the perfect day'. Now begins the patient search for answers.
If you went from top to bottom in the Premier League, you'd back yourself to differentiate between the happy fanbases and those who feel like manning the barricades. To a certain extent, you'd be wrong.
The Athletic's invitation to supporters to use our satisfaction-o-meter (like Jobs and Apple, this is patented) threw up a few surprising results, providing useful pointers for how the wind might blow from here.
First up, kudos to Nottingham Forest's crowd for being magnanimous about Champions League football slipping away from them. It never fails to amaze me how quickly a downturn in form can flick the switch. But greater kudos to Southampton, where a bats**t 12.5 per cent ranked themselves as very satisfied. Dodging the Premier League's lowest-ever points total must have been enough for them. Either that or they're taking the proverbial.
The Ipswich Town massive were far less grumpy than I expected, too. And Tottenham Hotspur? It turns out they're happy, and you do start to wonder if the Europa League has saved Ange Postecoglou's skin. A trophy is a trophy, after all. With that in mind, Chelsea's rating (55 per cent satisfied or very satisfied) might edge up slightly if they win tonight's Conference League final.
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But if you're scanning for any trouble brewing, look no further than West Ham United. They've hated the past 12 months. Graham Potter's win percentage of 26 isn't winning admirers. It's all got Homer Simpson, hurry-up-and-lose-so-we-can-get-out-of-here vibes, and I'm not sure I see light on the horizon.
(Kick-offs ET/UK time)
Conference League final: Real Betis vs Chelsea, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports.
MLS: Inter Miami vs CF Montreal, Toronto vs Philadelphia Union, both 7.30pm/12.30am — MLS Season Pass/Apple TV; LA Galaxy vs San Jose Earthquakes, 10pm/3am — Fox Sports, Fubo, MLS Season Pass/Apple TV; Vancouver vs Minnesota United, 10pm/3.30am — MLS Season Pass/Apple TV.
Big things are expected of Harry Gray, the younger brother of Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Archie. He's a 16-year-old forward and he's in the mix with Leeds United's first team. His reputation as a goal machine has been building since the day he started kicking a ball.
Mind you, we'd all be goal machines if chances came as generously as the one gifted to Gray in England Under-17s' 4-2 win against the Czech Republic on Monday evening.
Based on this solitary glance, I'm holding out slightly less hope for the prospects of Czech goalkeeper Adam Paar.