Liverpool target Yan Diomande put in the same breath as Lionel Messi with remarkable World Cup stat

Liverpool have been chasing Yan Diomande hard in recent weeks, and he keeps giving them new reasons to push.

The RB Leipzig teenager arrived at the 2026 World Cup as one of the brightest young talents on show, and he has lived up to the billing. He was electric in his opening game and steady but impactful in the narrow loss to Germany.

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Piero Hincapie and Joshua Kimmich will be having nightmares about Diomande after he ran rings around both of them. Only one teenager has made more successful dribbles in his first two World Cup appearances — and the name attached to that record needs no introduction.

Yan Diomande only bettered by Lionel Messi in World Cup dribbling stat

The numbers tell the story. Diomande has completed eight dribbles across his first two World Cup games, according to OptaJoe.

The only teenager to manage more in his first two World Cup appearances this century is Lionel Messi, who racked up 10 at the 2006 tournament in Germany.

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Twenty years on from that breakout, the greatest player of all time is still tearing it up at, opening the 2026 tournament with a hat-trick against Algeria. The benchmark Diomande is being measured against remains one of the best players at the tournament two decades later.

It bodes well for the Reds if they can get this deal over the line, and it sounds like they are edging closer.

Fabrizio Romano provides Liverpool transfer update on Yan Diomande

Liverpool’s interest in Diomande is not going away despite the rejection of an initial bid.

Fabrizio Romano has laid out what is happening behind the scenes in a recent YouTube video, and he expects FSG to go again.

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He explains: “Liverpool will bid again, there is no doubt. I already told you, and I can confirm. Liverpool will be back to the table of negotiations.

“Liverpool are pushing on the player’s side and what I can tell you also behind the scenes is that Liverpool are trying their best in terms of financial proposal and project to get the player on their side 100 per cent.”

Leipzig are not making it easy. The Bundesliga side want to keep Diomande and are ready to offer him a new deal — a bigger salary and a release clause — banking on another season of Champions League football together before he weighs up his future in 2027.

But Romano believes that stance gets harder to hold with every game.

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He said: “Now there are several clubs interested, Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool, very aggressive, and Liverpool will bid more than 100 million euros to try and change the situation.”

We’ll see how strong Leipzig’s resolve is.

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