Not over, but done: Lamine Yamal all smiles as he guides Barcelona to verge of title

Lamine Yamal had not crossed the line yet but he was celebrating already, everyone else following him. It was not over, not officially, but it was done: the derby and the whole damn thing. The nights Barcelona took their last two league titles, they did so against RCD Espanyol, heading beyond the city limits and coming back as champions; the evening they took their third in four years, they faced the same opponents: the rivals Barca’s goalkeeper had grown up with and so many of them had grown up against. Chased from the Cornella pitch in 2023, cycling up Avinguda Diagonal in 2025, this time it was the 18-year-old with the symbolic escape.

There were three and a half minutes left on Saturday night when it happened. Marc Casadó slipped the ball through, Lamine Yamal ran on to it and Marko Dmitrovic ran out to it. The Barcelona forward blocked the Espanyol goalkeeper’s clearance, the rebounded setting him up and leaving Dmitrovic and everyone else to watch the inevitable. Alone, running free into the area, an open goal before him, Lamine Yamal slowed, smiled, maybe even laughed a little, took in the moment, and raised his arms, Usain Bolt contemplating Richard Thompson and Walter Dix. He had not finished, his team had not either, but he knew. They all did.

Lamine Yamal carried the ball into the net and sat on the advertising boards, looking at what he had just done. From by the bench, his teammates headed Lamine Yamal’s way, Fermín López first to arrive. 3-1 up against their city rivals, nine points up on their greatest rivals, on his 100th league game, what he had just done – what they all had – was the league title. At 18, it will be his third. He smoothed down his hair, did a little dance and then the game, finished now, began again. Twenty-six seconds later, Marcus Rashford made it four. Lamine’s pass, another one, had started that too.

Lamine Yamal began his celebrations before scoring the decisive goal against Espanyol. Photograph: Bagu Blanco/Pressinphoto/Shutterstock

The third, decisive goal had been a portrait, a metaphor for the title race, a picture of the way it is: not done but done, not mathematically yet but soon, something to celebrate already. If the fact that it was Lamine Yamal that scored it felt right – if the way he scored it did too, a cheeky grin stretching across his face, untouchable now – the fact that he was even still out there at all was something.

Barcelona had led early, Ferran Torres ending a 14-game run without a goal by getting two of them, the second from an absurd Lamine Yamal pass, and it was almost time for him and Pedri to exit early as planned, a little rest before Tuesday’s Champions League comeback mission at the Metropolitano. Espanyol had not won in 2026, a 14-game run without a victory beginning the last time they faced Barcelona. Their coach would complain that they had gifted the goals: getting out-jumped by Gavi, 5ft 7in, left you feel liking crapping all over yourself, Manolo had González said. And, as they waited in the tunnel for the second half, Gavi had told his teammates “get the third and we kill them”.

Instead, Pol Lozano pulled one back before the hour and the derby, Hansi Flick admitted, got a bit “tight”, so Lamine Yamal and Pedri stayed on. “Espanyol’s car broke down weeks ago and the Camp Nou wasn’t exactly the place to find a garage to fix it,” wrote El Periódico, murdering their motoring metaphor. “In the first half, the engine was making a strange noise and leaking oil, but in the second, it was a well-oiled machine, that uphill street becoming a clear motorway”. Still only 2-1 with five minutes left, Roberto Fernández just failed to finish from the edge of the six yard box. A little nervousness had crept in, an opportunity at risk of slipping by. The place, González claimed, was now closer to the Les Corts cemetery just over the north stand, where Paulino Alcántara and Ladislao Kubala lie. But then Lamine Yamal appeared, easing his way to the line, the Camp Nou rising again, revived, as González sat there, head in his hands. Espanyol had been stuck at someone else’s party again, wishing they were not there.

Manolo González watched on as his team succumbed to yet another defeat. Photograph: Bagu Blanco/Pressinphoto/Shutterstock

There were olés and songs, chants that Espanyol could go back to segunda: after a brilliant start to the season, their cushion over relegation is still six points but they have only picked up five of 42, a run the defender Fernando Calero called “fucking shit”. Then fans broke out their Bad Moon Rising. Parakeets, tell me how it feels / to have your home in Cornella / They tore down Sarria / You went up the mountain / We kicked you out the city / You went down to be champions / Let’s pray you disappear. At the full-time whistle, there were a few words – “Everyone’s a gunslinger when they win; when you lose, you have to swallow it,” González said later – but mostly there were embraces. Barcelona’s players – eight of those who played had been in the academy, raised on this rivalry – briefly bounced about before the fans and then headed around the pitch, chanting: “Yes, we can!”

Before the derby, Flick had said that the priority was the Champions League, that that was the trophy they really wanted, and after it the domestic title soon gave way to something bigger. And yet, his lineup belied that. Real Madrid had dropped two more points on Friday to go with the three they dropped eight days earlier, and the following evening Barcelona’s starting XI was about as good as it gets, no concessions made. As the derby progressed, fatigue was a fear but this opportunity was too good to let go of. And there, at the end, was Lamine Yamal, the title inevitable now.

Incontestable too. On Friday, Madrid drew 1-1 with Girona having been denied a last minute penalty, despite Kylian Mbappé lying with blood across his face where he had been hit by Vitor Reis’s elbow. Yet while fans were furious, the whistles from the Santiago Bernabéu showed that this went deeper: real anger is reserved for their own team and, stripped to basics, they know the title is explained by something simpler: Barcelona are better. Much better.

Real Madrid felt hard done by in their draw against Girona after not receiving a penalty for Vitor Reis’s elbow to Kylian Mbappé’s face. Photograph: Mutsu Kawamori/AFLO/Shutterstock

When Madrid won the clásico in October, it was hard to think of an outstanding performance but there was a sense that something might be building and they were five points ahead of Barcelona, for whom something was wrong. This was the kind of win that can set up a whole season and Madrid would be top until week 14. Flick, meanwhile, had warned “ego kills success” as early as week three and had seen his team torn apart by Sevilla a fortnight before the clásico. That night though, Madrid’s victory was eclipsed by Vinícius Júnior stomping off, which seemed absurd at the time and significant as the days passed. They soon drew three in a row – Rayo, Elche, Girona – then lost to Celta. Barcelona beat them in the Super Cup final. Xabi Alonso was sacked. Albacete beat them in the Copa del Rey.

It got better briefly, flashes of something that they still hang on to, especially in Europe, but mostly it got worse. Certainly in the league. It is still hard to think of a really impressive performance. Betis perhaps? Gonzalo García’s grand night. By contrast, Barcelona have won 19 of 21 games since the clásico – nineteen – and although Girona took them to pieces, that served as a warning and the other defeat, against Real Sociedad, was hard to fathom, Rino Matarazzo looking to the sky and citing “other explanations”, celestial ones. Although the vulnerability remains, although Atlético destroyed them in the cup then defeated them in Europe, Barcelona have dropped points only twice since October; Madrid have dropped points in four of the last seven games.

When Barcelona secured another derby win on Saturday night, unbeaten now in 30 games against Espanyol, they moved nine points clear at the top of the table with only 21 points left in play. Sport’s cover declared “the league in the bag,” while El Mundo Deportivo described it as “a party that tastes like league,” before both of Catalonia’s sports dailies moved on to bigger business inside. Ahead of the rest, unreachable now and aware that it was done before it officially was, Lamine Yamal’s moment, the smile and the celebration, summed it up. “No, it’s not over,” Flick said but the line is just there and no one is going to catch them now.