Lamine Yamal: the baby in a bath tub who became a crucial cog for Spain

{"text":[[{"start":9.15,"text":"In December 2007 a 20-year-old Leo Messi posed for a charity calendar washing a baby in a plastic bath. The shoot was arranged by his club FC Barcelona, and the baby was a local named Lamine Yamal. When Yamal shot to greatness aged 16 and the photograph emerged, it took on a new meaning: Messi, the world’s best player, was anointing his footballing son. "}],[{"start":32.25,"text":"Yamal, a left-footed outside-right like Messi, followed him through Barça’s Masia academy. In fact, Yamal, who turned 19 on Monday, has achieved more than Messi at that age. Days after his 17th birthday, he won Euro 2024 with Spain, and then lifted two Spanish championships with Barça. On Sunday, he faces Messi’s Argentina in the World Cup final. Though below his best in this tournament, fighting recurrent injuries, Yamal is already probably the most successful young footballer in history."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":63.85,"text":"His mother came to Spain from Equatorial Guinea, and his father from Morocco. After their divorce, Yamal grew up among cousins in Rocafonda, a mostly immigrant neighbourhood of the seaside town of Mataró on the highway north of Barcelona. His mum worked at McDonald’s, while his uncle ran a bakery."}],[{"start":84.2,"text":"Like Messi, he became that rare combination: a natural shaped by a world-beating football academy. In 2018, journalist Vivienne Walt asked a Masia staffer which kid might become the next Messi. The staffer pointed to a 10-year-old in orange boots. “LAMIN YAMAL,” wrote Walt in her notebook. In the Masia he absorbed the Spanish collective passing and pressing game. He debuted for Barça aged 15, and celebrated goals by forming with his fingers the number “304” — the last digits of Rocafonda’s postcode."}],[{"start":116.35,"text":"Still 15, he watched Spain get knocked out of the 2022 World Cup by Morocco — whose national team tried hard to recruit him. Spain at that tournament played like a parody of Spain: all sideways passes, as if the aim of football was to cross the breadth of the field."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":132.25,"text":"That ended once Yamal, aged 16 years and 57 days, became the team’s youngest ever debutant and scorer. His pace and dribbles gave “La Roja” (“The Reds”) their missing ingredient. Spaniards call it “verticalidad” — verticality, or forward movement. He poses an almost insoluble dual threat to defenders. His speed obliges them to stand off him, but then he can punish them with a pinpoint shot or pass. "}],[{"start":160.8,"text":"When Euro 2024 began, Yamal was 16 and looked it, with braces and baby fat. That tournament, he became the youngest player ever to score at a Euro or World Cup. The second youngest, aged 17 in 1958, was Pelé."}],[{"start":179.3,"text":"Barcelona has always liked blooding Masia talents young, but nowadays the debt-ridden club, unable to afford big transfers, is forced to do so. It became dependent on the child, playing him nonstop. Spain did, too. Yamal developed pubalgia, a groin problem that can stem from overuse, especially in young athletes. Other young Barcelona players like Ansu Fati, Gavi and Pedri have suffered serial injuries too. Barça accused Spain of overplaying Yamal. When it withdrew him from the Spanish squad last autumn, the football federation expressed its “surprise and displeasure”."}],[{"start":217.4,"text":"Youthful success rarely goes unpunished, and Yamal’s 18th birthday party, attended by footballers and influencers, was criticised for its “nouveau riche” aesthetic. The “hiring of people with dwarfism as entertainment” at the party was denounced by a Spanish charity for the condition, achondroplasia."}],[{"start":235.15,"text":"It’s also sometimes hard to be the face of a new multicultural Spain. Yamal, a practising Muslim, condemned the Islamophobic chanting by some Spanish fans during a spring friendly against Egypt. At Barça’s parade celebrating their title this year, he waved a Palestinian flag, angering Israel’s defence minister."}],[{"start":255.45000000000002,"text":"But Yamal says he never feels pressure. “My mum had me when she was 16,” he has said. His father “sometimes picked up stuff in the streets to try to come home with food for us. To me, this is real pressure, not what I have.”"}],[{"start":269.85,"text":"Recovering from his latest injury, he began the World Cup on the bench before becoming a starter. After victory over Belgium in the quarter-finals, he said, “Every week I feel a bit better.” He hasn’t carried Spain the way Messi has Argentina. He has no assists yet this tournament and just one goal, against Saudi Arabia. After the quarter-final, the data provider Opta noted that he had lost 104 balls, the “highest total in the competition”."}],[{"start":296.85,"text":"Yet it’s not Yamal’s job to carry Spain. He’s a crucial cog in the tournament’s supreme collective team. Where stars like Messi, Kylian Mbappé or Jude Bellingham have to score their countries’ goals, Spain keep Yamal out on the right wing. His job, in part, is to keep the field wide, and the opposition defence pinned back and double-teaming him. That creates space in the centre for teammates, and on the wing for Spain’s overlapping right-back Pedro Porro."}],[{"start":324.40000000000003,"text":"Modest performance hasn’t dented Yamal’s self-confidence. “If France should fear anyone, it’s us,” he said before Spain trounced les Bleus 2-0 in the semi-final. He has won all 12 matches he started at a Euro or World Cup."}],[{"start":339.90000000000003,"text":"Yet Yamal may not even be the biggest star in his family. His impossibly cute three-year-old half-brother Keyne has become a social media sensation with his “Vamos!” celebration, dances and headfirst immersion in a popcorn bucket. Yamal says Keyne doesn’t know he’s going viral. “He just does the same things he does at home.” He adds, “It moves me to see my brother happy, to see my mother leading the life she always dreamed of.” "}],[{"start":366.95000000000005,"text":"Donald Trump might be less happy. At last week’s Nato summit he called Spain “a terrible partner in Nato” and “hopeless, bad people”. On Sunday he might have to present the World Cup to La Roja while Keyne parties in the stands."}],[{"start":387.40000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784291630_1913.mp3"}