On his Champions League debut the 20 year-old took just two minutes to net the first goal of his brace - no small beer against the team who defeated Bavarian giants Bayern Munich 2-0 in the Fußball-Bundesliga last Saturday.
In the latest swirl of Messi-mania, Tello's superb European debut on Wednesday night is in danger of being lost; a mere forgotten footnote among the thousands in the career of the greatest player ever to have kicked a football.
So who is this Messi Mark II, is the Barça No37 worthy of the hype, and which Premier League club have been eyeing him up already?
For some time at the Camp Nou the name 'Tello' has been on the lips of players, coaches and fans as the man most likely to come close to reaching the nosebleed-inducing benchmark set by their Argentine prized jewel.
On Wednesday night, in the floodlights of the famous Barcelona stadium, another gleaming talent was confirmed. Pep Guardiola, who handed Barça B winger Tello his La Liga debut - a 15-minute cameo against Villareal - on Jan 28, introduced him against the German side in the 53rd minute.
That he came on for Andrés Iniesta, who handed Spain their first ever World Cup less than two years ago, is not insignificant. It took just two minutes before Cesc Fàbregas - incidentally, Iniesta's assistant against Holland - sent him racing clear from the left of the half-way line, with chalk on his boots.
Tello showed his astonishing pace, easily catching up with the ball, nodded it into the penalty area, and cleverly arrowed his right-footed shot around the stranded Bernd Leno with his second touch.
Never mind that it was his Champions League bow, his was a cool finish comparable to a seasoned international striker.
Seven minutes later, after Messi's fourth goal, Tello was on the scoresheet again, and had Leno hoofing the post in disgust.
Found on the left thanks to Dani Alves's dinked pass from the middle-right, on the edge of the box, he took one touch with his left to bring the ball out of the sky, another to settle it with his right, before squeezing it past the goalkeeper's left once more.
Cristian Tello Herrera, to give him his full name, was born on Aug 11, 1991, in the city of Sabadell, located a mere 20km to the north-west of Barcelona.
At the age of 11 he was snapped up by Barça's academy, having started out at local team Can Rull. It was at the famous La Masia - the place where Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and Guardiola, among countless other Barcelona stars, mastered their trade - Tello began to flourish.
After six years, however, he was loaned out to nearby Catalan club CF Damm for a season. When he returned to the Camp Nou, in June 2008, his contract was up for renewal. He opted to move to Barcelona's city rivals Espanyol, fearing that with Messi and co beginning to gel under new coach Guardiola he would have little chance of breaking through to the first team.
In his two years at Espanyol, he played four times in the Spanish third division for the B team before switching back to Barcelona - in spite of the fact that manager Mauricio Pochettino had promised him first team football at the Estadi Cornellà-El Prat.
The move looks vindicated now, and after 39 games and nine goals since 2010-11 with Barça B, Guardiola now sees Tello as very much a part of the future of the club.
On Nov 9 last year he made his first team debut, playing 90 minutes in a 1–0 away win against lowly CE L'Hospitalet in the Spanish Cup. And after making his La Liga bow against Villareal at the end of January, Guardiola handed him a full league appearance against Real Sociedad a week later. He opened the scoring after eight minutes, found by Messi, and Barcelona won 2-1.
It was after the Sociedad match that Tello spoke of his relief at returning to his footballing home. The Spanish Under-23 winger said: "Espanyol offered me a place on their first team, but I had a wish, which was to triumph here.
"When you leave there is always a thorn in your side, and when I was offered the chance to go back, I did not think twice and I worked hard to take every opportunity.
"I have to thank the trust that Pep had in me."
After Wednesday's night's heroics, the modest Tello said: “The victory is in background because the goleada [rout] was important. [For] my first goal, I signalled that I wanted a deep pass and with Cesc’s ball, I was all by myself against the 'keeper. Afterward, I only had to knock it in.
“The boss told me that I should ask for the ball as long as I had a goal scoring opportunity. He tells me to be myself. My pace is important.”
According to seemingly spurious transfer rumour tittle-tattle, guffed by one English newspaper a day before the Leverkusen trouncing, Liverpool are 'tracking' Tello, with a view to snapping him up at the end of this season, which is when his current contract expires.
After the performance against Leverkusen, following on from an highly impressive beginning to his Barça first-team career, surely it will only be a matter of time before Guardiola sits down with Tello and inks his long-term future at the Catalan club.
Liverpool, it appears, will have to 'track' other players to accomany Andy Carroll and Luis Suárez, as already Tello is out of their league.
Can he reach the heights of the Messi stratosphere? Only time will tell. But so far, the boy done good.
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