Analyse
Spain’s Lamine Yamal With braces on the way to becoming a world star
“Well done little one” – 16-year-old Spanish international Lamine Yamal celebrates the victory with his teammates after the UEFA EURO 2024 group stage match between Spain and Italy at the Arena AufSchalke
© Michael Regan/UEFA / Getty Images
The football world is enchanted by a 16-year-old who is dancing through the defensive lines at the European Championships as if there were no tomorrow. Some are already comparing Spain’s Lamine Yamal to players of the century like Pelé. And rightly so?
Those who have seen him are full of superlatives. Child prodigy. Rough diamond. Gift from God. The new Messi. Or also: someone like Pelé.
Pele first appeared on the world football stage at the age of 17 at the 1958 World Cup and showed something incredible: the Brazilian seemed to have grown together with the round ball. The ball was not an unruly object to be controlled – but a logical extension of the human body. The tournament became Pelé’s tournament.
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Will this European Championship be the one for Lamine Yamal, Spain’s young star on the right wing? At 16 years and 338 days old, he became the youngest player in European Championship history to score a goal himself when he set up his team-mate Daniel Carvajal with a cross to make it 3-0 against Croatia in the first group match. Carvajal was already playing for the Spanish national team when Yamal had just started school.
Someone who gives football back its unpredictability
Now this Lamine Yamal is shaking up the football world. It has obviously been longing for someone like him, someone who can give football back its unpredictability, its football pitch-like cheekiness. And Yamal still wears braces. His school assignments were sent to him digitally during the tournament and journalists have already asked whether his appearances in evening games are not in breach of the German Youth Protection Act. According to this, young people under the age of 18 are not allowed to work after 8 p.m.
But what does “work” mean here? Isn’t it more of an art when he runs at turbo speed towards the opposing defence with the ball that seems to stick to his feet? Or when he gently strokes the leather ball with the sole of his foot and dances around the most cunning defensive swashbucklers in the style of Zinédine Zidane? An awed murmur sometimes went through the arenas at his best scenes. What was on display was effortless ball skills, pure talent in its purest form.
His father is from Morocco and his mother is from Equatorial Guinea. They grew up in Mataro, a suburb of Barcelona. As a four-year-old, Yamal watched his father and cousin play football, joined in and then knew nothing else. The football pitch in Rocafonda Park became his living room.
Finishing touches in “La Masia”, the breeding station for football legends
The talent scouts of the great FC Barcelona discovered Yamal and, at the age of seven, steered him to their youth academy “La Masia”, which has already produced world stars such as Messi, Xavi and Iniesta. Spanish football school: fast, short passing in a confined space, in small teams with only seven players each, on mini goals, no stupid strength and endurance training. Practice is only done with the ball – after all, it is the center of the universe. At “La Masia”, the rough diamond Lamine Yamal receives his first fine-tuning.
At the age of 15, still a child, he made his debut in the first division team of FC Barcelona. At 16, he wore the Spanish national jersey for the first time. In his first full season for FC Barcelona, Yamal immediately became a regular player and even made ten appearances in the Champions League.
What makes him so strong? Yamal is fast, he likes to be played “steeply”, i.e. sent on a journey through passes into the depths of the area. He can then start his fearsome dribbles at an insanely high speed and tear open entire defensive lines from the side. Due to his enormous speed, he can only be stopped by defensive players, who often have to turn in his direction first and thus lose valuable seconds, through fouls. These in turn provoke free kicks along the penalty area.
He just doesn’t like working backwards
Like Arjen Robben once did, Yamal likes to move from the right wing to the inside and then try to score with his strong left foot. He has a good sense of how to get away unnoticed behind his opponents and – as can be seen in his interaction with Carvajal – he has a good overview, which makes him a good passer and provider. Yamal just doesn’t like to work so much at the back – something that Spanish national coach Luis de la Fuente is happy to forgive him for.
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With Nico Williams, 21, on the left, Yamal forms a wing formation that can be fatal to any opponent – probably the best in this tournament. Both are ideally suited to the new Spanish game, which has long since said goodbye to the annoying tiki-taka ball-pushing: the two young wingers give it both width and depth, they pull the opposing defense chains apart, opening up spaces and interfaces. And they put the defensive formations under constant stress with their speedy runs. Neither of them wants to die in beauty. They look for the finish immediately and as quickly as possible.
Exit clause in the contract, amount: one billion euros
Yamal’s market value was estimated at around 90 million euros before the European Championship. A huge increase from the 25 million that were estimated for him in August 2023. If this European Championship really becomes his tournament, he is likely to become even more expensive.
He is under contract with FC Barcelona until the summer of 2026. However, interested parties are welcome to come knocking beforehand, and under certain conditions he can move earlier. French champions Paris Saint-Germain have reportedly just offered 250 million euros. After all, the prodigy’s contract contains an exit clause.
The problem, however, is its amount: one billion euros.
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