Winger’s award is rightly deserved and has implications for the club’s immediate future
Lamine Yamal has been named La Liga’s Player of the Season after helping Barcelona secure a second successive league title.
He finished ahead of Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe in a voting process involving fans, club captains and a panel of experts.
The 18-year-old winger scored 16 goals and provided 12 assists as Barcelona collected 94 points to win the Spanish league, ending the season eight points clear of Madrid.
It is the first time Yamal has won the prize, his Barcelona teammate Raphinha having won it last season. Raphinha is still Barcelona’s most influential player and he probably would have retained the award this season as well were it not for a campaign heavily truncated by injury problems.
Yamal’s campaign was also interrupted by injuries, notably pubalgia, a groin problem. He also suffered the hamstring injuries that affected most Barcelona players during the season. Yamal was restricted to only 28 league appearances, missing the club’s final six matches through the hamstring problem having earlier missed games around the autumn through pubalgia.
But he played more minutes than Raphinha and it was always going to be him, evidence of what a player he has become since his breakout campaign in 2024-25. That season was more explosive, Yamal finishing strongly, taking the world by surprise and emerging as a very strong, if controversial, contender for the Ballon d’Or.
𝗟𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗬𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗹 is LaLiga’s 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 👏👏👏
Congratulations, Lamine! 💎🔝 pic.twitter.com/GusZwiCon1
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) June 5, 2026
This season his growth has been quieter, if only because it is expected from him now, but in a way this last season he was even more influential for Barcelona than he was the previous term. The award was highly deserved.
Mbappe was overlooked despite finishing as La Liga’s leading scorer with 25 goals. That is partly due to Madrid having finished well below Barcelona, but it is also partly because Yamal has been a far more influential player in the league and for his club than Mbappe.
There will be a need to protect him more, given his young age and the injuries he has suffered. Yamal has been included in Spain’s squad for this summer’s World Cup and could even start their opening games despite his recent injury problems. A long summer tournament and then getting straight back into the squad for next season could be an overload to his legs.
Barcelona will kick off again next season pursuing their third consecutive La Liga title and aiming to finally make headway in Europe, and they will be confident because they know they have the best player in Spain on their side.
