From a stadium tunnel to an underground-built Los Angeles home, Lamine Yamal has turned his World Cup into something more than football—balancing the affection that follows him with the responsibility he says he’s carried since he was a child.
When the third goal against Austria went in and the cameras swung toward him, Keyne didn’t hesitate. His younger brother—still only three—threw his arms up and shouted, “Come on!” Los Angeles didn’t just cheer Spain’s win. It turned the moment into a wave of memes.
A short time later. 30 metres below ground in a stadium built from beneath the surface because of its proximity to LAX airport. Lamine Yamal stood on a platform surrounded by cameras. microphones and mobile phones. Someone inside showed him the footage. They asked what he thought about a child enjoying a childhood he said he never could.
There was a pause. “I don’t know …” Lamine Yamal said eventually. “It makes me emotional to see my brother happy, and my mum. He is everything to me. It’s like he is my son and I’m in love with him.”
Lamine Yamal is 18. but he has said before that he has taken on “too much” responsibility for almost as long as he remembers. In a recent interview with El País, he said he first felt something like fame, exposure, when he was 13. At the start of this competition, a video of him walking round Walmart went viral. Much was made of it—“too much,” he suggested, and he wasn’t wrong—but it mattered to him anyway.
In his view, the clip was a rare opportunity to do something normal. Then the video appeared, saying something else too.
Even here, surrounded by the best players in the world, there may be no one quite like Lamine Yamal. At 18, his image is everywhere, and every time he gets the ball, there is a roar—anticipation that comes with obligation. Within the Spain squad, that obligation seems to drown out everything else.
And before the World Cup. it felt like everyone was waiting for him to come back from the injury that kept him out since April. During the tournament, it has often felt like his teammates take their cue from him. He had said the group stage was just something you have to do; the real thing starts now. in the knockouts. He also said he had “used” those games to feel himself again. If Spain could be Spain, he said, no one is as good as they are. On the day he said the World Cup started, Spain proved it.
But Spain’s confidence didn’t come only from him. All over the pitch, Spain impressed. The full backs flew. Dani Olmo found spaces. Luis de la Fuente keeps asking people to talk about Mikel Oyarzabal, and he had a reason to. Still, sometimes it feels like it always comes back to Lamine Yamal—another responsibility, another message landing on his shoulders.
Tuesday night ended with Spain’s statement: late, against Austria, they said the truth before anyone else could. After he said no one could match Spain, the following morning before training in Carso, his teammates said much the same. Against Austria, they showed it.
De la Fuente summed it up with a phrase that sounded like both praise and pressure: “Almost perfect.”
Before the match, Lamine Yamal took the hand of the mascot and asked if they were OK. In the tunnel. Olmo told his “bro” to show his mascot what it was like when he walked into an arena—the reaction he gets. the impact he has on people. After the game, Lamine Yamal held up the player of the match award.
He was a thrilling, dynamic, relentless presence. He drew gasps with touches that landed like surprises, including two nutmegs. He also had a belting battle with Konrad Laimer. Even then, he didn’t seem entirely sure this one was for him.
At one point he was asked if he was happy, given he didn’t look entirely overjoyed. “Obviously, yes,” he said. “I’m very happy, above all because we’re through. Bit by bit, I am feeling myself, getting the runs I need, the dribbles. This is where it starts: no one wants to go home now and we will do everything we can to stop that. I’m 100% ready to play as many minutes as the manager wants.”.
He added something else as well—something that sounds simple until you hear how hard it must be to live inside. “I really appreciate the affection I get in every stadium,” he said. “There is nothing in football better than a World Cup. and when a kid dreams of playing football they dreams of this. I enjoy every moment, from when we leave the hotel. I am 18 years old and at a World Cup; that won’t happen again. We don’t fear any team; we’re Spain. We trust in ourselves.”.
When asked how he avoids all this affecting him, his answer landed on the same theme as the Walmart clip and the underground media scrum. “By focusing on playing football and spending a lot of time with my family,” he said. “They’re the only ones who known me as just Lamine, who I am.”
Lamine Yamal Spain World Cup Austria Los Angeles El País Dani Olmo Luis de la Fuente Mikel Oyarzabal Konrad Laimer Keyne