Yamal converts a penalty then limps off as Barcelona beat Celta Vigo 1-0 to stay nine clear
Barcelona beat Celta Vigo 1-0 at Spotify Camp Nou on Wednesday night thanks to a 40th-minute Lamine Yamal penalty that kept Hansi Flick’s side nine points clear of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga with six games left. The goal was his only touch worth remembering. The injury he suffered in the act of scoring is the bigger story.
Yamal pulled up sharply as he tried to wheel away in celebration, clutched the back of his left leg, and went straight down on the touchline. He was replaced by Roony Bardghji within minutes. Early reports in the Catalan press suggest Barcelona fear a hamstring tear and that he could be out for at least five weeks, with a 2026 World Cup start for Spain in June also now in doubt.
A routine win, an anything-but-routine injury
Barcelona had controlled the first half in the way you would expect from a side nine clear at the top, and the penalty came from a Yoel Lago foul inside the area that Yamal sent low to the bottom corner. The celebration never happened. He signalled immediately to the bench and was on the ground before his teammates reached him, holding the back of his left thigh rather than the kicking leg.
Flick has seen Barcelona’s season tilt on this sort of moment before. Yamal has been their most used attacker for the season, with league-leading numbers in shots, chances created and minutes among the forwards, and he has carried a workload that would have been a conversation at any other club. The question around his management has been live for weeks.
Five points the new margin might as well be
The win, for all the worry over Yamal, keeps the numbers on Barcelona’s side. Nine points clear with six games to play is the kind of lead that only a collapse can give up, and even with the injury sitting over the dressing room, this team has enough across the squad to close out La Liga in routine fashion. Raphinha, Ferran Torres and Fermin Lopez are all fit, and Bardghji’s introduction at least gave Flick a look at the bench he has been quietly building for the run-in.
Real Madrid, meanwhile, travel to Real Betis at the weekend with Xabi Alonso gone and Alvaro Arbeloa now in charge as their appointed head coach. Pressure at the top of the table is as light as it has been all season, and Barcelona can afford one or two slip-ups before the leadership changes hands.
The World Cup question
The international context is where the injury stings hardest. Spain start their 2026 World Cup campaign in June against Cape Verde, and Yamal has been at the centre of Luis de la Fuente’s plans since Euro 2024. A five-week absence puts him on the edge of being available for the opening week of the tournament rather than the group stage build-up, and a longer recovery would be the kind of blow that changes Spain’s starting XI.
Barcelona will know more once the scans come back, and they have become practised over the last year at managing their teenager’s minutes. For Wednesday night, though, a routine La Liga win is already filed in the cabinet. What happens next depends on a hamstring, and the call Flick has to make about every match until the title is wrapped up.
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