It is a piece of skill Lamine Yamal is making an arka form — and yet another reason the 17-year-old is one of the most exciting players in world football.
The Barcelona forward has used the ‘trivela’ — an outside-of-the-boot shot or pass — to provide three of his nine assists in La Liga this season.
His latest came against Mallorca last week and there was one in the Barcelona derby against Espanyol on November 3, but the trivela versus Villarreal in September was a thing of beauty.
Trivela is a Portuguese word, and the story behind the action getting that name remains unclear. In Brazil, where Portuguese is the official language, such strikes are named ‘Tres Dedos’, as they are produced by using the three outer toes of your foot. The prefix ‘tri-’ means three of something.
The most established theory to explain the trivela refers to a physics phenomenon named trivelocidade, as Professor Salvato Trigo, from Fernando Pessoa University in the Portuguese city of Porto,
