There is something hidden in plain sight about Lamine Yamal that his coaches at La Masia – Barcelona’s academy – understood long before the rest of the world caught up.
He is listed as a winger. He terrorises full-backs from the left flank. His dribbling numbers are elite. And yet, when CBS asked him how he played as a boy, the answer landed like a reveal.
“When I was small I never dribbled much or got past many opponents. I scored a lot of goals, ran a lot, but above all I had very good vision of the game,” he said. “I focused on what Messi did because he gave different passes – passes that led to goals. And I looked at Modric, who passed with the outside of his foot. That seemed more interesting to me than dribbling, because it is more about the mind.”
Modric. Not Arjen Robben, not Franck Ribery, not any of the great wide forwards he could have cited. A deep-lying central midfielder whose genius was spatial. A player Yamal was watching and thinking about as a child.
Albert Puig, one of his coaches in Barcelona’s academy, picked up on this years ago.
“Lamine expresses himself better when he has passing lines and some reference in front of him,” Puig said. “I think he can evolve the way Messi did – getting closer to the game, being in contact with the ball, and participating more.”
The data is beginning to confirm it. Across the past two seasons, Lamine Yamal has increasingly drifted more into interior zones, operating as a second playmaker as much as a winger.
Julen Guerrero, who worked with him in Spain’s youth system, is unsurprised by the direction of travel.
“Of course I can picture him as a false nine,” Guerrero said. “But it is a less comfortable position because teams block the centre more, there are fewer spaces, you have to be more patient. But he is very intelligent. He knows how to move.”
The winger’s role rewards pace and isolation. The central role rewards everything Lamine Yamal was drawn to as a child: vision, timing, the pass destined to become a goal before it leaves your foot.
Messi made exactly this journey. From right wing to false nine, from the flank to the centre of the greatest club side in history.
It took him until his mid-20s to complete it. Lamine Yamal may not need that long.
The World Cup is coming. Lamine Yamal will be 18 when it arrives and not turn 19 until the day before the first semi-final on July 14.
Spain will go there as one of the favourites, built around him.
