He is capable of carrying an entire Barça team on his back, being at times the Blaugrana’s decisive player, but off the playing field Lamine Yamal continues to lead the life of a 16-year-old teenager. One of his occupations is his studies, which he combines with football in the afternoons at La Masia, and in his free time he continues to enjoy his lifelong friends.
“I still play little games with my friends in the park,” explains the young pearl of Barcelona, ??raised in Rocafonda, a humble neighborhood in Mataró, where they “have been seeing him all their lives” and are “accustomed” to his presence in an interview with Marca. . “In my neighborhood I can still do it (normal life),” explains the striker, who in other places already notices how he is “walking around and (people) turn around” due to his incipient fame. “I get hot!” He reacts with embarrassment when people ask him for autographs and photos on the street, with fans crowding around him.
The nerves caused by fame off the field transform into tranquility when he has a ball at his feet. “What you have to do is just think that it’s a game and try to enjoy it,” he reflects on how he manages expectations. “At the moment it’s all good, it’s not pressure. I think that when you start to think about it, that’s when the pressure starts to come on,” he insists in full concentration for the Spanish senior team, with whom he has already played four games and scored twice. goals.
Already accustomed to playing highly demanding matches, Yamal already dreams “of playing in a Champions League final, playing in a European Championship, playing in a World Cup. Being able to score in a World Cup or a European Championship…”. Some ambitious objectives that he does not rule out fulfilling, in part, this season. “I believe that all the competitions in which we are alive can still be dreamed of. If there is a chance of winning, it can be won,” he says about Barça’s chances of winning a title, in addition to ensuring that Spain can win the European Championship this year. Summer: “Of course.”
The Catalan does not want to stop and he is not afraid that his physique, even as a child, could stop him. “Everything that involves playing is going well for me. Whatever comes, fine, but first we will think about the Euro Cup,” says Yamal who does not rule out playing in the Olympic Games, something that Pedri already did in the summer of 2021, along with Eurocup, and that later took its toll on him in the form of injuries. “It all depends on the person. There is still a long way to go. It can happen, but whatever it is to play, I will be available,” he says about the case of his Canarian companion.
In the thank you chapter, the winger gives “a lot” importance to his introduction to the Barça coach, Xavi Hernández, who gave him the opportunity to show himself among the football elite. “At the end of the day, he is the one who brings me up to train, makes me debut with the first team, gives me continuity in the first team. He is the one who gives confidence to the younger ones,” praises the Yamal from Egarense who lives in a cloud: “I feel very calm to see my mother happy, my father, my grandmother, my cousins.”
