Yamal is key for Barcelona and Spain, but is he headed for burnout?

It’s the second international break of the 2025-26 season and Lamine Yamal has a week off. That’s good news from the perspective of the 18-year-old really needing it, but the bad news for the Barcelona and Spain forward is that he will spend it recovering from injury after suffering a groin issue during the Champions League defeat against Paris Saint-Germain last Wednesday.

Lamal’s groin injury could simply be down to bad luck and the rigors of top-level football, but when the teenager’s incredible appearance numbers are factored in — 130 senior games and 8,158 minutes on the pitch by his 18th birthday — the shadow of burnout and the danger of football running its bigger young star into the ground becomes a worrying possibility.

No other elite footballer has registered anywhere close to the appearances and minutes clocked up by Yamal by the age of 18 and his workload has led to FIFPRO, the global players’ union, using his game-time for club and country as a case study in a 51-page report on the 2024-25 season titled “Overworked and Underprotected — Player Heath and Performance Impact.”

“The modern game’s rising intensity is challenging enough for established professionals, but for young players aged 16 to 20, the risks are even greater,” Dr Darren Burgess, Chair of FIFPRO’s High-Performance Advisory Network said. “At a stage when their bodies and minds are still developing, the demands of congested schedules and high-intensity training can have lasting consequences for both performance and career longevity.”

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So how much more active has Yamal been than his contemporaries? The answer to that is staggering, and perhaps alarming.

Yamal’s 130 appearances for Barcelona and Spain prior to his 18th birthday are almost twice as many as the second player on the list of current players among those two teams: Pau Cubarsí, the 18-year-old defender, registered 69 appearances, with midfielders Gavi (60) and Pedri (49) next.

Beyond Barcelona and Spain, Yamal’s numbers continue to be off the scale in comparison to those playing at a similar level.

Yamal’s sensational performances last year saw him named as the 2024 Golden Boy — the award presented by Italian newspaper Tuttosport to the most outstanding Under-21 footballer in Europe — and he did so having clocked up 8,158 minutes by his 18th birthday.

None of the three most recent winners — Jude Bellingham (2023), Gavi (2022) and Pedri (2021) — come close. Bellingham was nearest, with 6,216 minutes by his 18th birthday, while Gavi (4,195) and Pedri (3,811) both had significantly lower minutes.

Bellingham’s workload has often been cited as a concern, with the Real Madrid and England midfielder having been a regular at club level since breaking through as a 16-year-old at Birmingham City, but the now-22-year-old did not make his 100th senior appearance until he was 18 years and 10 months old.

Guess what? Yamal became the youngest player ever to reach 100 games by hitting the mark aged 17 years and seven months — eclipsing previous record holder Romelu Lukaku by four months.

So far in his prodigious career, since making his Barcelona debut aged just 15 years, nine months and 16 days against Real Betis in April 2023, Yamal has been relatively untroubled by injury, missing just 18 games for Barca and Spain in that time, including Sunday’s LaLiga clash against Sevilla, but according to Transfermarkt, his injuries have already amounted to 133 days out of action since his club debut.

And if Barcelona’s worst fears are confirmed, Yamal’s latest injury could keep him out of action for up to a month, ruling him out of Spain’s World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Bulgaria over the next week and putting his participation in El Clasico against Real Madrid on Oct. 26 in doubt.

“We don’t know when Lamine will return because with this injury,” Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said on Friday. “It’s not easy to say since it’s not a muscle injury. We don’t know if he’ll be back in two, three, or four weeks, so I don’t know if he’ll be ready for the Clasico. We have to manage his minutes. He’ll take it step-by-step.”

There is already clear tension between Barcelona and Spain over the national team’s handling of the player, however. Flick, who coached Germany between leaving Bayern Munich in 2021 and joining Barcelona in 2024, was pointed in his criticism of Spain’s use of Yamal during the September World Cup qualifiers.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “He [Yamal] went to the national team in pain, played and was given painkillers to play. He played 79 minutes and 73 — that’s not taking care of the players.

“Spain has the best players in every position. It would be worth taking care of the young players. I’m sad about the situation, but it’s like they are doing this [to them].”

In response, Spain coach Luis de la Fuente questioned Flick’s comments, saying he “was surprised, given that he [Flick] is a manager who has also coached a national team and I thought he would have had more empathy.”

Yamal isn’t the first young player to himself at the center of club versus country tension.

Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, two players who shot to international stardom at major tournaments with England at the age of 18, constantly found themselves in the starting XI for club and country, and both have since admitted to rushing back into action too soon for the national team following lengthy injury battles.

Owen and Rooney were also well past their best and discarded by England by the age of 30, so there are warning signs for Yamal to heed.

“Physically, exposing teenagers to repeated match and training loads designed for fully mature players increases the risk of overuse injuries,” Burgess, who is also a former high-performance director at Arsenal and Liverpool, said. “Growth plates, tendons, and ligaments remain vulnerable during these years, and excessive high-speed running or short recovery windows can lead to long-term structural damage.

“What might begin as a minor issue — a recurring hamstring strain, a stress fracture — can quickly become a pattern that follows a player throughout their career. Perhaps the greatest cost of all is lost potential. A player rushed into the spotlight too soon, without adequate protection and progressive development, may see their career shortened before it ever truly begins.”

Barcelona and Spain, therefore, have a huge responsibility to Yamal and other youngsters who pull on their iconic jerseys. At 18, Yamal has the world at his feet and could be the natural heir to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but he won’t have a chance if he burns out before he hits 30.

“If the sport is serious about nurturing the next generation, it must prioritize development over exploitation,” Burgess said. “Only then will today’s young talents have the chance to become tomorrow’s enduring stars.”