Lamine’s anecdote from the day he trained for the first time with the ‘seniors’: “I went to the gym, I didn’t want to be there…”
Ethe end of the FC Barcelona and of the Spanish team, Lamine Yamal, is the protagonist of the GQ magazine cover of this month of June. To his 16 years He has experienced meteoric growth this season with the Barça first team and also with the national team, which he will represent in the European Championship in Germany this summer.
The pearl of La Masía has reviewed several topics related to his jump to the elite without having reached the age of majority and also to Barça’s season in which he did not win any title.
The season with Barça. “I had the highest expectations, because at Barça not winning any title is something hard. I think we have had many ups and downs, especially in LaLiga. And we have not known how to be consistent. To win La Liga, the Champions League, the Copa del Rey or the Spanish Super Cup you have to be consistent, and that’s what we’ve been lacking. The fact that we haven’t won anything lowers my grade quite a bit, honestly.”
Starter for club and national team at 16 years old. “The first day I trained with them, I left my backpack on the chair they had given me, because we young people didn’t have a locker, I put on my boots and went to the gym, because I didn’t want to be there, I was embarrassed.”
I had the highest expectations, because at Barça not winning any title is hard.
The youngest Barça player to play in an official match. “It was an incredible feeling, a very special moment. The first thing I thought was that everything was very different from the field to what you see from the stands. And then every step I took there was a dream, it was something very beautiful.”
His first Euro Cup. “We are very excited because in the end we are all very young. For many of us it is our first Euro Cup. I am very excited to be able to play with my team and give it our all,” he says. “And I hope to win it.”
Racist insults in football. “I think it is something regrettable and that it cannot happen. Before, it was taken as something normal, which is something that I cannot understand either, but it cannot happen anymore. I believe that LaLiga will take measures so that it does not happen again. In the end, that you are playing a sport and that someone comes to see you and insults you, well, man, it is not something normal either, but it can be understood that it is the reaction of a spectator. Now, that they insult you because of your color. of skin, the truth is, I don’t make sense of it.
I don’t see the point in being insulted because of your skin color.
The pressure of an athlete in the spotlight. “In the press one day they call you the new Messi and the next day they say you have to stop playing. So the best thing is to focus on your work and your work, and only think about what the coach tells you, which “He is the one who really wants to help you, and your colleagues.”
