Lamine Yamal has said that Barcelona don’t fear Real Madrid like other teams do after the Catalan club won a fourth consecutive Clásico to move to the brink of the LaLiga title.
Yamal, 17, scored Barça’s second goal as they recovered from conceding two early Kylian Mbappé strikes to win a remarkable game 4-3 at the Olympic Stadium, moving seven points clear of Madrid with just three matches to play.
Barça, who lost all three Clásico’s last season, have now beaten Madrid four times since the start of the campaign, twice in LaLiga and in both the Spanish Supercopa and Copa del Rey finals.
“It doesn’t feel good when Madrid beat you,” Yamal told ESPN after the victory. “It’s true we didn’t beat them last year, we suffered, and this year we gave everything to turn it around.
“We don’t have that fear of them that maybe other teams have against them. So we gave it our all. We feel like we’re better than every other team, that’s the mentality we go out with.
“I think that’s how you have to play against them. You have to show up like you’re the better team and enjoy yourself, that’s it.”
Barça coach Hansi Flick praised Yamal’s mature performance in helping the team come from two goals behind for the seventh time this season, saying “believe me, he’s definitely not a kid.”
Yamal then kept a promise to swap shirts with former Barça forward Thierry Henry, who joined the Blaugrana in 2007, the same year the teenager was born.
Henry had asked Yamal for his shirt during a recent interview, with the Barça winger saying he would give him one if he received one in exchange.
