Last March, Lamine Yamal posted a picture of a word file on a laptop, the dimming lights from Barcelona’s fading night flickering in the background. The laptop’s screen and background are black, The only visible words are the title of the file: “Chapter 1: My Inner Abyss,” and the opening words: “I would like to be what everyone wants me to be.” The world wondered at the cause of his melancholy. He was 18, a star already, a European Championship winner, a multiple league champion with a mantlepiece stacked with trophies of personal glory, a millionaire, an inspiration for millions of migrant children in Spain’s nondescript backyards.Advertisement But despair was gnawing inside. A sports hernia had afflicted him at the start of the season. It continued to haunt him. Towards the end of the season, it recurred, putting his World Cup participation in jeopardy at one stage. He had logged in nearly 8,000 hours of football before turning 18; the club and country blamed each other for mismanaging his workload. Maybe, Yamal felt burned out; maybe, the implacable burden of being painted the best player in the world crushed him. But the reason for his melancholia, he said after brightening his mood with a hat-trick against Villarreal – his first in the league, was not meeting his own expectations. “I wasn’t happy on the pitch and I think you could tell. I didn’t feel like smiling on the pitch,” he admitted. The numbers are glittering for a self-evaluated bad season. Yamal scored 24 goals, half of them cutting from the left and flashing his willowy yet rubbery left leg towards the goal, making humiliation-GIFs and memes out of defenders. He assisted in 18 goals in just 45 games. Yet, he was dejected, because the standards he has set himself are higher. He is too young and unpretentious to feel that he is already great.Advertisement ALSO READ | How PSG gave the city of Henry & Mbappe a football club they can be proud of But he knows what greatness looks like; if not, there are men and objects around him, every blade of grass at Nou Camp and corners of the dressing room, to tell him how footballing greatness looks. It measures five feet seven inches, but its stature and scale are immeasurable. The shadow of Lionel Messi casts itself on his spiritual heir from Barcelona to North America, where Yamal strides out for the biggest tournament yet in his life. ****** The moment Lionel Messi strolled in as a substitute in Argentina’s 6-0 rout of Serbia and Montenegro at the 2006 World Cup, the only question that mattered was when he would hoist the World Cup and fulfill the purpose of his footballing life. The Argentine had to wait till his fifth tournament to do it, wore the heaviest burden and anguish for 16 years, endured heartbreaks, suffered criticisms and injuries, retired several times, and saw the moment nearly stolen by Kylian Mbappe. Yamal has already helped Spain win the European Championship, not least with his incredulous strike against France in the semifinal in Munich, a strike barged into football’s consciousness. But it’s the World Cup that would define him, one that would trench his legacy. “I have lifted it a thousand times, in my room or when we won a match at the sports centre in my neighborhood,” he jokes in an interview with the Spanish Football Federation. He was referring to a replica trophy in his uncle Abdul’s bakery in their hometown Rocafonda. Lamine Yamal in action. (AP) His days on the streets are long gone; his journey from Rocafonda to Nou Camp was swift. But the sceptre of expectations and the anticipation of the magical will be suffocating, as it was with Messi, his idol Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo. Every step he takes will be watched and dissected; his victories glorified, his failures criticised. He becomes a plot device in himself. He is aware of the pressures, and has dealt it with a smile. Recently, he posted on Instagram: “Gavi kept telling me he’s the youngest Spanish player to score a World Cup goal…So I’m going to try a HAT-TRICK. I’ll probably be the youngest Spanish player to do it”. ALSO READ | Spain’s coach on Messi vs Yamal comparisons: ‘He is football’ you may like 1IND vs AFG, One-Off Test Match Day 2: Afghanistan 113/5 vs India in Mullanpur at Stumps2FIFA World Cup 2026 Schedule: Check out full fixtures, dates, venues and timings3India Squad for Ireland, England Series 2026 Announcement: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi included in team4Sharp turn at 90 kph: Manav Suthar teases India’s spin future in New Chandigarh5IND vs AFG highlights, One-Off Test Match Day 1: India 368/3 at stumps vs Afghanistan in Mullanpur Yamal has a lightness that great sportsmen have, a frictionless pull to the arclights. It’s not the exuberant bravado of late-teenage that rings in him, but a preternatural awareness of his gifts. He is not worried about what the world thinks of him. “My only enemy is myself, I want to get better than myself,” he once told Marca. Beneath the giggles and frolics, he has a stern voice on more sensitive topics, too. In April, after a friendly between Egypt and Spain in Espanyol’s RCDE Stadium, where Egyptians were subjected to anti-Muslim chants, he launched a scathing attack on the perpetrators on Instagram: “I understand not all the fanbase is like that, but to those who sing those chants: using religion as something to mock people in a football stadium leaves you as ignorant and racist people. Football is to enjoy and support, not to offend people by who they are or what they believe in.” Yamal possesses not only a magic wand of a left foot but a discernible heart that embellishes his aura. He has conquered Spain and Europe. Now, to the world.
Will Crown Prince & Euro winner Lamine Yamal succeed King Messi at World Cup
