Messi and Yamal: two ways to be the best

On Sunday they meet at the New York/New Jersey Stadium: Argentina against Spain, the World Cup final. On one side Lionel Messi, thirty-nine years old, captain, defending champion, and almost certainly on this stage for the last time. On the other Lamine Yamal, nineteen, European champion, and according to FIFA the player who has stirred up this tournament more than anyone.

The previews are about legs, minutes and systems. We looked at something else. What happens if you stop seeing these two as opponents and start seeing them as colleagues? Suppose they had to work on something together tomorrow. Where would they understand each other immediately, and where would it fall apart within a week?

That is exactly the question a personal user guide answers. Not who is better, but how two people relate to each other. We built a profile for both of them and put them side by side, using the same comparison two colleagues get to see of each other.

The result is not what you would expect. On four of the five pairs they sit close together, and on the one point where everyone would expect a gap, work ethic, they are almost twins. The real gap is somewhere else, and it is exactly the gap teams trip over.

Where they would click straight away

Start with what they share. Messi and Yamal are both focused, and in neither case is that an accident. It is a system.

Messi has spent two decades at the top. He played almost every available minute of this tournament at thirty-nine, extended his Inter Miami contract for several more seasons instead of winding down, and produced the same numbers across three different leagues. Yamal grew up at La Masia, broke one age record after another at seventeen, and signed a long-term contract before he was old enough to vote.

They are both undisturbable too. Pressure makes them quieter, not sloppier. Messi is playing his sixth World Cup. Yamal played a European final at sixteen. Neither of them lets you see on the pitch what is going on inside.

Two focused, undisturbable people on one project is a gift. Deadlines get met. Nobody panics. Which is exactly why nobody sees the real problem coming.

The difference is about who takes up the space

This is where they diverge, and it is the biggest gap between them.

Yamal is merry. He is visible, in the celebration, in the footage, in the gesture to his Rocafonda neighbourhood. He seeks out contact with the crowd and the camera, and at nineteen he does it without hesitating.

Messi is quiet. He lets his football talk. He is captain, but not a talker. He draws his energy from the game itself rather than the attention around it, and off the pitch he is consistently withdrawn.

Put those two in a meeting and within ten minutes you know who is doing the talking. This is not about dominance or shyness. One of them thinks out loud, the other thinks first and then says one thing. Without an agreement about that, you never hear half the room.

And how they look at new ideas

The second difference is subtler. Yamal is progressive. He plays the trivela, the cross with the outside of his foot, where everyone else plays it safe. He switches between attacking positions without effort and looks for the solution nobody saw coming.

Messi is curious. He adapts, from tiki-taka at Barcelona to the more physical American league, but his strength is repetition. The same movement, thousands of times, a fraction sharper than everyone else. He improves the known instead of replacing it.

On the last pair Messi is compassionate and Yamal is reasonable. Messi is captain, runs his own foundation and consistently puts the collective first. Yamal collaborates easily but keeps a closer eye on his own course. That is not a criticism of a nineteen-year-old, it is a description.

Where it would go wrong within a week

Three things, and all of them are predictable.

The meeting tilts. The visible colleague fills the silences and the quiet one lets him. Three weeks later one of them thinks there is agreement and the other has never once said his main objection out loud.

Then the innovation. The progressive colleague proposes something new. The curious colleague asks whether it is proven. Without an agreement that becomes a stalemate in which experience always wins, and you lose exactly what you hired the younger one for.

And then the silence itself. Two undisturbable people only discuss a problem once it is already a problem. Both assume things are fine because the other says nothing. That is the most dangerous combination in this entire profile: calm that nobody checks.

What their guide would tell them

This is what a personal user guide would say if these two became colleagues tomorrow.

1. Let the quiet one respond first. One rule in every meeting: whoever talks least gives their verdict first. It costs thirty seconds and it changes who has influence.
2. In writing beforehand, out loud afterwards. Messi gets time to formulate, Yamal gets the conversation he needs. Neither has to adapt to a pace that does not suit him.
3. Do not treat silence as agreement. With two undisturbable people somebody has to ask explicitly what is not going well. Fixed moment, short question, no meeting.
4. Ask for evidence, not for certainty. Anyone proposing something new shows what it rests on. That is a fair question to Yamal. "We have always done it this way" is not a fair answer from Messi.
5. Let experience pass on the how, not the what. Recovery, preparation and handling pressure are transferable. Taste and nerve are not.

Those are five agreements you can make in ten minutes and that save you six months of friction. You cannot deduce them from a CV, and not from an interview either. They come from two profiles placed side by side.

Sunday is about something else

To be clear: on Sunday, Messi and Yamal will not be working together on anything at all. They are on opposite sides and one of them goes home disappointed.

But there is a Messi and a Yamal on your team. Someone who only speaks once it is finished, next to someone who thinks while talking. Both equally good at their job, both equally committed, and still talking past each other. Across 2,705 profiles we found that this is exactly the pair where the differences between colleagues are largest.

If you want to have that conversation without it turning vague, start by writing down how you work yourself. Your own user manual is precisely that: how you run a meeting, what you need, where you get stuck.

Create your own guide and put it next to your colleague's. You do not need a World Cup final to know how the two of you relate.

Sources

• FC Barcelona player profile: Lamine Yamal
• UEFA player profile: Lamine Yamal
• World Cup wonderkids: Lamine Yamal
• Lamine Yamal on Wikipedia
• Lionel Messi at Inter Miami CF
• Messi on his first spell in MLS
• Lionel Messi on Britannica
• Honours and achievements

Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal did not take the test themselves. This portrait is an editorial estimate based on the sources above.