Yamal has had a sensation last year-and-a-half. After being named the best young player at the 2024 European Championship, which Spain won, the teenage sensation played an instrumental role in helping Barcelona win a domestic treble in the 2024-25 season, registering 18 goals and 21 assists. His exploits saw him finish as the runner-up to Ousmane Dembele for the 2025 Ballon d’Or, with the notion that Yamal will lift the prestigious individual award sooner rather than later.
With the world already at his feet at the age of 18, Yamal has often been warned by legends of football and other sports to navigate the pitfalls of fame and fortune very carefully. Boris Becker, who created history by becoming the youngest male Wimbledon champion at the age of 17 in 1985, said last month that Yamal’s early success “rings alarm bells” for him, urging the Barca wonderkid to not “make the obvious mistakes.”
The teenage boy wonder often makes headlines due to his lifestyle and his romance with Argentine singer Nicki Nicole. His lavish 18th birthday celebrations were criticised, too, as he invited professional dwarfs for entertainment. At one point, he was even threatened with legal action against him.
Speaking in an interview with El Chiringuito Laporta said: “Lamine is a genius. We have to support him and give him the best advice, but he is already much more mature than other boys his age because of what he has been through. This fame can overwhelm him, but he is handling it very well. He is 18 years old and trains every day. He is disciplined with his groin injury and with what the club tells him, he follows everything to the letter so that he can improve. The way to treat him is to help him. He will make mistakes like everyone else, and perhaps more so because he is very young. He is a lad who makes himself loved.”
Yamal has already clocked over 9,000 minutes of football in two seasons, having become indispensable for both club and country. However, with his minutes not being managed carefully, the right winger has become prone to injuries, with his latest setback set to keep him out of action for at least another week. His management has sparked tensions between Barca head coach Hansi Flick and the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).
