BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Lamine Yamal was injured while converting a penalty in Barcelona's 1-0 Spanish league win over Celta Vigo on Wednesday.
Yamal scored in the 40th minute and immediately looked to the bench to signal he was hurt. He dropped to the ground as his teammates arrived to celebrate, then appeared to grab the back of his left leg.
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Barcelona's Lamine Yamal lies on the pitch injured during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal scores the opening goal by a penalty during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal lies on the pitch in pain during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal lies on the pitch in pain during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Yamal left the field on his own after being attended by doctors. He talked briefly with coach Hansi Flick on the sidelines before walking into the locker room tunnel by himself.
“Of course it’s a real blow for us because Lamine is a very important player for the team,” Barcelona midfielder Gavi said. “He was upset in the locker room. I don’t know how long he will be sidelined because of the injury, but hopefully he will be back as soon as possible because we need him.”
Barcelona didn't give any immediate information about the severity of the injury sustained by the 18-year-old forward, who is set to make his World Cup debut with Spain in June.
“Hopefully Lamine will only miss a few weeks,” Barcelona midfielder Pedri said. “I wish him the best of luck. He needs to remain calm because he's young and will surely recover well.”
Barcelona also lost Portugal defender João Cancelo because of an apparent right leg injury in the 24th.
Flick said the injuries would be evaluated Thursday.
The Catalan club restored its nine-point lead over second-place Real Madrid, which defeated Alaves 2-1 on Tuesday.
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Barcelona's Lamine Yamal lies on the pitch injured during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal scores the opening goal by a penalty during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal lies on the pitch in pain during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal lies on the pitch in pain during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
NEW YORK (AP) — Gene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the “Today” show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair, oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100.
Shalit's family announced the death Friday to NBC News, saying in a statement that he “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life.”
Shalit joined “Today” as a contributor in 1970 and became arts editor in 1973, later settling in for his segment, “Critic’s Corner." When he left the show in 2010, he was one of the last high-profile film critics on a major network.
“What resonated above his unusual appearance was his incredible wit, his remarkable intelligence. But he didn’t pound you over the head with it. He amused you. He enlightened and amused whatever subject he was on,” Guy Ludwig, Shalit’s producer for more than 20 years, wrote in an essay of his time.
It was no coincidence that Chicago critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s local “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” movie-review program, “Sneak Previews,” went national on PBS in the late 1970s and that “Today” show's ABC rival, “Good Morning America,” hired Joel Siegel to be its movie critic in 1981.
“Shalit was instrumental in changing the balance of critical power in America. When he began his ‘Today’ tenure, newspapers and magazines were the primary sources for movie reviews. That’s where cinematic opinion was sparked and shaped,” The Plain Dealer wrote in 2010, calling Shalit “Daniel Boone in a bow tie and Groucho glasses.”
Shalit started as an entertainment columnist for McCall’s magazine, eventually becoming senior film critic for Look magazine in 1968 and writing for Ladies’ Home Journal. His popularity in magazines led to an offer from NBC.
“No one at NBC had seen him. They’d only read his stuff. So he walked into this executive’s office and the executive took one look at him and said, ‘Mr. Shalit, have you ever thought of radio?’” wrote Ludwig. “They didn’t know how the public would react to someone who looked so different from people who were typically on TV in 1967.”
On the air, Shalit was a middle-of-the-road critic. Of 1986’s classic “Stand By Me,” he said it was different from other movies about youth “because of instead of grossing you out, ‘Stand by You’ is engrossing.”
“Many critics will give so much of the plot of a movie away that they destroy the movie for the viewer... I just don’t give away the story,” he told The Associated Press in 1993.
He liked “Defiance” starring Daniel Craig and Jude Law, calling it “a vivid dramatization of one of history’s titanic turning points.” But he called “Brokeback Mountain “wildly overpraised, but not by me” and drew condemnation from GLAAD for calling Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jack, a “sexual predator.” Shalit apologized.
He called “Frozen” “very cool.” He said the oddball title of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” was “heard to bleat,” and his review of “The Lovely Bones” read in part: “There’s no bones about it.”
He began reviewing on the air the year of “Patton” and “Love Story” and ended his run with a critique of “Shrek Forever After,” of which he noted that the “bellow fellow is now a mellow fellow.” One highlight of this tenure was his descent into a fit of giggles while interviewing Carol Channing.
He called a remake of “King Kong” so “gargantuan that I must create new words to describe it: fabularious … a brilliantological humongousness of marvelosity.” His take on Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”: “It should be against the law not to see it.”
In a 1981 interview with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, Belushi said Shalit’s hair looked like “an ant farm on fire.” Nevertheless, he peppered his guest with so many questions about their daily life that it felt like therapy. He asked both comedians what their last meals would be. “What do you want to be doing 10 years from now, John Belushi?” Shalit asked. “‘Fiddler on the Roof’” Belushi replied.
During his tenure, he traded quips with anchors ranging from Edwin Newman, Barbara Walters and Jane Pauley to Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric, Jane Pauley, Al Roker and Meredith Vieira.
Gumbel was not always a fan, once saying Shalit’s reviews “are often late and his interviews aren’t very good.” The critique came in what was supposed to be a confidential memo to Marty Ryan, the show’s executive producer at the time.
In 1994, while in St. Pete Beach, Florida, to cover Major League Baseball spring training, a car hit Shalit as he was crossing a street and broke his leg. After that, “Today” began recording his movie reviews in his home studio.
He was born in New York and grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, starting his grammar school’s first newspaper before writing a humor column for the newspaper while a student at Morristown High School. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949.
Shalit played the bassoon, but he said he started out on the clarinet.
“I didn’t practice for a few weeks and the teacher got furious,” he recalled in 1988, before playing bassoon in a New York City fundraiser. “He took away my clarinet and as punishment he said, ‘From now on, you’re gonna play THIS.’”
In 1987, he edited a book called “Laughing Matters: A Celebration of American Humor,” saying he wanted to introduce and reintroduce such old and new masters of American humor as Mark Twain, James Thurber and Russell Baker.
Shalit was regularly mocked on “Saturday Night Live” by cast member Horatio Sanz, who would appear on the Weekend Update desk dressed as Shalit and go on an extended, barely coherent rants that punned the title of every movie he reviewed. Shalit also made cameos on “Sesame Street,” “Family Guy” and “Spongebob Squarepants.”
He is survived by a daughter, Willa Shalit.
FILE - In this May 31, 2006 file photo, film critic Gene Shalit is seen during a toast with "Today" show cast and crew at the end of Katie Couric's final show, in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
