Lamine Yamal stardust could give Barca edge on Inter Milan

BARCELONA – Barcelona last reached the Champions League final a decade ago, with Lionel Messi as their torch-bearer.

Now the Catalan giants rely on another generational talent in Lamine Yamal as their “X-factor” when they host Inter Milan in a semi-final, first-leg clash on April 30.

At the peak of his powers, Messi scored two brilliant goals in the 2015 semi-final, first leg against Bayern Munich on the way to the treble, and while Yamal, 17, is still honing his finishing, he holds the key to the team’s potential success this season.

The teenager, left-footed but operating on the right flank with freedom to roam, as Messi did for many years, is what gives Hansi Flick’s brilliant Barca their edge.

Yamal showed precisely that in their thrilling Clasico Copa del Rey final victory over Real Madrid on April 26 in Seville, setting up two of Barcelona’s three goals.

He has been showing it all season, with 14 goals and 24 assists, and countless but crucial flashes of invention, genius and flair, on the back of his superb Euro 2024 displays with champions Spain last summer.

Flick’s attacking Barca has captured the imagination and a grand part of that is due to Yamal.

In Barcelona’s city centre it is rare to walk more than a few minutes without seeing somebody sporting a replica Yamal shirt.

On matchdays, a sea of No. 19 shirts ascends the rolling staircases and escalators reaching towards the Olympic stadium on the city’s Montjuic hill.

It used to be Messi’s No. 10, with an array of different Barcelona shirts from different years, or the sky-blue and white stripes of Argentina.

With Yamal the shirts are identical, given his rise to stardom has been dizzyingly rapid and this is his first season wearing the No. 19.

Should Barcelona