Lamine Yamal’s 19th birthday started with a kickabout with his mates and took in a show. He played the lead role himself, taking centre stage before a packed house in the World Cup semi-final pre-match press conference. Walking in, he peeled back his tracksuit top like Superman to reveal the gift that he got: a huge white gold and diamond chain BA Baracas would have been proud of.
“Actually, no, I bought this for myself so it doesn’t count as a gift,” he said, flashing a smile at the room of journalists who he thanked for accepting the invitation to be there on his big day. A glint in his eye, he said he hadn’t had many presents yet, but he knew what he wanted: “A trip to New York.”
Win on Wednesday and he will get his wish. But he and his Spain teammates have just got to get past France first. No pressure, kid. And although his coach and his captain had urged him to escape the “anxiety”, Lamine Yamal insisted there was none. “Pressure? No,” he said.
Instead, there was training in the morning – the session started with him and fellow birthday boy Víctor Muñoz running the gauntlet of teammates pounding them on the back as they passed – and a performance in the afternoon, a teenager at ease and enjoying the press conference. After it, he said, he had arranged to go and cut his three-year-old brother Keyne’s hair.
“There are much harder things in life than a football match,” he said. “It’s a game, I know what I’m capable of and I’m not worried about anything.”
Some game, though. Asked where this ranked among all those he has played, he replied: “In the top one.”
After the quarter-final, Lamine Yamal had said that far from fearing France, if anything France should fear them. Now he said that Jules Koundé, his Barcelona teammate and an opponent on Wednesday, had understood that was “normal” and “just football”. “I was asked if there was fear and I said no, obviously not: we’re European champions,” Lamine Yamal said. “We don’t have to talk too much, we know what we have to do.”
So far it hasn’t quite happened, and there is a hint of the urge to remedy that, seen in his manager’s words. “He’s 19, madre mia,” Luis de la Fuente said. “I would say to him: relax, enjoy it. Anxiety, out! Let him enjoy it. Lamine’s great day is still to come at this World Cup. I hope it’s tomorrow and, if not, in the final.”
Lamine Yamal hopes so too, even if he tried not to show it. He was reminded that he had scored both times he faced France before, at 16 then 17 years old, but also that he had scored only one at the World Cup so far. To which he insisted: “It’s special to [have] scored in games like this and of course I accept the challenge. You lot say I am not at my best level, so you don’t need to expect anything from me tomorrow. But I hope it will be a special day.”
There was an equally neatly delivered dig at Mariano Rajoy, albeit Lamine Yamal didn’t dignify the former Spanish prime minister with a name or much of his time. In a World Cup column which is so bad as to be beyond parody even under normal circumstances, Rajoy had written that France were good, but not actually French.
“We’re going to play one of the nicest games, there’s no space to talk about that,” Lamine Yamal said. “But if football serves any purpose it is for integration. All the more so with Spain and France, which are examples. That’s what football is for; not for talking about comments like that.”
So mostly they talked football, but also about him. This teenager who is somehow three years into his career, an icon already, even here. “It’s very nice that football has given me the chance to be known in Chattanooga [where Spain’s training base was]. I never imagined I could go somewhere in the US and be recognised.”
Lamine Yamal: big in Chattanooga. Big everywhere else in the US too, on billboards all over the place. So big that even Keyne has been a star of this tournament. “He doesn’t realise,” Lamine Yamal said. “When the cameras turn to him he does silly things. He’ll see it when he’s older. I’m happy people like him as much as I do. When I see him, it amuses me.”
And while that is not always ideal, although there have been moments when he has admitted that the responsibility is huge, here he embraced it. He had wanted to do this press conference, to take it on. It’s part of his life now and he made it part of his day.
“What would you say to a 10-year-old you?” Lamine Yamal was asked, as if he was some wise old man. “I don’t know: to be himself and enjoy it,” he replied. Then there was the one about fate and figures, whether he believed in numerology. After all, it’s his 19 birthday, his shirt number is 19 and the final is on the 19th.
“No,” he said, “because the Portugal coach talked about that [numerology] … and then Mikel Merino turned up! I’m not worried about scoring, all that matters is winning, but hopefully a goal comes tomorrow and it’s a great day. What I want as a present is a win.”
