The 2020/21 season felt like a change in the guard when Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland started to announce as stars on the European stage. At that moment it felt like the Lionel Messi versus Cristiano Ronaldo era of greatness ended and the young duo was ready to be central. However, when it happened, two of the greatest players of all time were not completely ready to resign from the throne.
Fast forward to the spring 2025, and it finally feels like Ronaldo and Messi's Golden Age is finished, but two new young pretenders on the throne can simply use a better claim than Mbappe and Haaland, and that is an explanation.
While Haaland and Mbappe remain productive, their supplies have fallen slightly somewhat in the short term and two new stars have hardly gained Europe any more time.
Lamine Yamal and Desire Done were not two names on the lips of many 18 months ago. Doue was only six months ago. However, the two teenagers are now the most popular prospects of football, and the age -old debates are already starting to mess around in the background.
It was not long, those sounds will be heard loudly, at the front and the middle of every media outlet.
Lamine Yamal: Best in the world?
It feels like Yamal has been around for years.
The 17-year-old sensation has had two seasons as a regular starter in Barcelona and is a key figure in the Spanish national team. After five goals and five assists in Laliga during the 2023/24 campaign, Yamal then played a leading role when he helped Spain to win the European Championship 2024.
It was clear that Barcelona and Spain already had the real deal: a star for the present and the future.
However, Yamal's game has reached new heights under the new Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick. With a style of football that encourages the opposition with figures and individual freedom, Yamal excelled on the right.
The parallels with Messi are difficult to ignore when he slides past the defenders before he effortlessly curls the biggest stages in the upper corner.
18 goals and 21 assists in all competitions in the 2024/25 showcase how crucial Yamal was this season when Barcelona won a domestic double and reached the semi-final of the Champions League.
Yamal has been brilliant in making goals from the moment Xavi began to give him opportunities. After he has been beaten by his husband, the winger floats a devastating cross for those waiting in the box, and it makes little difference where he is on the field; Yamal will discover that the one who makes a run with pinpoint -secondary. Do you remember someone?
However, goals had not come so easily for him, and although he has always been able to score in a spectacular way, he was often wasting during shooting.
That changed in the last few months of this season.
Whether Yamal has worked hard on his finish or his self -confidence for the goal has grown, he could not stop scoring at the end of the season, so that he was firmly placed in the Ballon d'Or discussion.
He produced versions that surpassed superlatives in the two legs of the semi-final of the Champions League, the Copa del Rey-final and the El Clasico that Barcelona placed on the edge of the Laara title.
The target catalog of those games would be impressive if it was a compilation of the final season, but these were some of the largest matches in football and Yamal on 17, amazingly led by example.
Yamal celebrates the goal in the first stage against Intercarl Recine / Getty Images Europe / Getty images via AFP
A child who plays as someone in their prime, at the top of their game.
With the goals that now come as often as the assists, there is no roof for the Yamal ceiling.
If Ousmane Dembele wins the Champions League with PSG this Saturday, he can be and not Yamal who wins the Ballon d'Or in September.
For me, however, Yamal is already the best player in the world, and I expect that he will continue to do things on a football field that we cannot even propose mortals because this special player continues to break boundaries.
Doue destroyed Jamal for years to Yamal
Is it not funny that generation talents seem to announce themselves in pairs? First Messi and Ronaldo, then Haaland and Mbappe, and now Doue and Yamal, does not like to keep football just one headline act.
However, if I had written this article this time last year, few would be familiar with the name Desire Done. The exciting young winger was still in Rennes at the time, but his world was about to change.
After impressing PSG boss Luis Enrique with an assist and all-round electrical performance when Rennes drew 1-1 with PSG in the Parc de Princes last February, he became a priority for Enrique that summer.
Struggling for fitness and playing time in his first few months in Paris, Doue eventually scored his first goal for the club and offered an assist in the Champions League while PSG Salzburg blew away in December.
Since then, the 19-year-old has not looked back.
The goals and assists have regularly flowed because his devastating pace, box with tricks and fatal right foot has given defense nightmares. 13 goals and 15 assists in all competitions are impressive figures, since most of them arrived in the second half of the season. Those goals have helped PSG into a domestic double and a Champions League final in what a dream first season in the club for Doue will be.
It was a scandalous goal of Range Against Aston Villa in the quarterfinals of the Champions League when Doue really announced on the European stage. Comparisons with Yamal have since started to be murmured.
Doue Target Significance versus Aston Villafranck FIFE / AFP / StatsPerform
This Saturday evening Doue has the chance to surpass his new rival Yamal (at least for this season) by helping PSG to complete a historic Treble in the UEFA Champions League final.
This is only the first chapter in a rivalry that threatens to dominate debates for ten years or more.
Football thrives on such rivalry because, as we saw time and time again in the Messi vs Ronaldo era, superstars push each other to break limits and reach new heights in an endless struggle to steal the headlines.
The latest evolution of football?
We need more Yamals and Doues and less system -based players in a sport that has become too tactical and formal. Proponents want a reason to be on the tip of their seats, treated on expressive football and moments of magic that live in memory for a long time. Yamal and Doue produced their considerable part of such moments this season in a Champions League campaign that delivered some of the best competitions we have seen in years.
The new duo of football seems to be heading to head the latest evolution of this great sport, one that encourages individualism and football. If the promising signs continue in the next at the end of this season, then the 2025/26 season should be the cash register.
With Messi and Ronaldo who plays outside of Europe, an era of breaking records and reaching greatness has ended time and again.
Yamal and Doue are at the forefront in a large number of emerging young pretenders with great ambitions.
South American Wonderkids Franco Mastantuono, Estevao and Claudio Echeverri promise to join them as the stars of a fearless new era.
Time to crown a new king. Let the fight start.