Lamine Yamal has scored a goal in the World Cup and has not provided an assist, according to official data. Lamine’s numbers are very meager for statistics enthusiasts and those who do not pay attention to the subtleties of football. The fact is that Spain will play the semifinal against France on Tuesday, and this evidence would be unthinkable without the powerful contribution of the Barça winger.
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The World Cup started with Lamine on the bench. A muscle injury prevented him from playing the last five weeks of the season. He played the last 20 minutes against Cape Verde because the match was crying out for it, not because he was in good condition. His entry did not change the result, but it did impact the game.
Lamine has been a starter in the five victories that followed the draw with Cape Verde. He scored the first goal against Saudi Arabia and rested in the second half. Since then, what has Lamine done for Spain’s excellent run in the World Cup? No one will answer that question better than his victims, the left-backs of every single opponent Spain has faced.
The next four matches – Uruguay, Austria, Portugal, and Belgium – have repeated the same pattern: Lamine’s markers destroyed. Uruguayan full-back Sanabria left the match in the 69th minute. It was Lamine’s most discreet performance, but its effect on the defenders has become a syndrome. Midway through the first half, Austrian Laimer, a competent starter at Bayern, began gasping for air, exhausted by Lamine.
Sabitzer, the best Austrian footballer, had to drop back to establish the usual standard: two markers against Lamine. Spain won without breaking a sweat. The fixation on Lamine opened routes in other areas of the field. Through that advantage, Spain has ended up finding its game, that of a reliable, solid, and competitive team. It has conceded very little defensively and has guaranteed control of the matches with an imperial version of Rodri.
A large part of the striking impression Spain made at Euro 2024 was due to victories over four world champion teams: Italy, Germany, France, and England. It was a team without great expectations that went from suspect to fascinating, largely because of the amazement caused by Lamine. That kid, who turned 17 a day before the final, will turn 19 tomorrow. He is no longer an emerging star to whom opponents granted the licenses they now seek to prohibit.
Two against one, that is the message. No other player in the World Cup, neither Olise, nor Dembélé, nor Vinícius, has deserved such exclusive attention. The impenetrable Nuno Mendes, the best full-back in the world, received the most unlikely help remembered: João Félix, a surprising double full-back. For once he abandoned his natural defensive laziness. Nuno Mendes’ repeated efforts marking Lamine ended in a muscle injury (minute 57) and drama for Portugal, which lost its footing in the match. That clarified Spain’s outlook.
In this World Cup, where it is said he does not shine, Lamine sends full-backs off like laundry. From each one, he makes a Di Marco, the suffering Inter Milan defender, who went through a nightmare with the Barça winger in the Champions League semifinal. The latest has been the Belgian De Cuyper. He marched off to the locker room in the 60th minute, exhausted on a mission in which he received military help from Doku. The City dribbler was much more concerned with covering Lamine at the edge of the Belgian area than using his skills in the Spanish area.
If this World Cup says anything about Lamine, it is that his scant official statistics do not explain the incalculable value of his contribution to a team that is where it was expected to be. Hard to believe without Lamine, without this edition of Lamine, in its ranks.
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