Ilkay Gundogan has revealed a bizarre, untold story about what Barcelona sensation Lamine Yamal did during the middle of a game.
The Spain winger is the most exciting young talent in world football at the moment and after playing a key role in Spain's Euro 2024 triumph in Germany while doing his homework, he won both the Golden Boy and Kopa Trophy.
The 17-year-old is already performing at an incredible level for club and country and is widely expected to be a world star for years to come.
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But while everyone is well aware of Yamal's remarkable abilities, few will have knowledge of a strange incident he was involved in while playing for Barca against Porto last season.
The wonderkid enjoyed a sensational breakthrough season, scoring seven times and registering nine assists in all competitions.
He made history in the fixture in question, becoming the youngest player to start a Champions League game at the age of 16 years and 83 days.
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But former Blaugrana midfielder Gundogan remembers the game for different reasons as he recalled Yamal leaving the pitch to go to the toilet.
It's happened to the likes of Eric Dier and Jason Puncheon in England, but Barca had to play with a man less for a long period before Yamal was eventually replaced by Marcos Alonso.
"When I was at Barca, we had a Champions League game in Porto," Gundogan said, speaking on The Ranveer Show.
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"We were leading 1-0, everything was good. Around 60 minutes, we started to suffer - it felt like the opponent has at least one player more on the pitch.
"I was like, 'What is going on here?'. "I found out that one player of our team has just left the pitch and went to the toilet. And they didn't replace him. The coaching staff waited to replace him to do the substitution because it was Lamine Yamal.
"Obviously last season he was very important for us. And they didn't know when he was coming back, 'Should we take him off, should we put someone else in?'.
"They waited and waited and at one point I was like, 'Guys what is going on, we are playing with one man less, you don't want a substitute?'.
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"At the end they had to because he didn't come back out of the dressing room.
"I don't know if people found out what happened, I don't think it became a big story. We won the game so afterwards we could laugh about it but I remember suffering."
Ferran Torres scored the only goal of the game to give Barcelona a hard-fought 1-0 victory. Midfielder Gavi was sent off late on after picking up two yellow cards.
Topics: Ilkay Gundogan, Barcelona, Lamine Yamal, Champions League
Josh Lawless