Lamine Yamal: What was he thinking?

Ah, Lamine Yamal. The admiration for his skills is still so new; when have you ever seen someone who had just turned 17 sweep across the pitch like he did at last year's European Championship? Those chip passes. Those changes of direction. Those sudden shifts from one foot to the other. "He has an innate talent that makes his age irrelevant," said a former player at his club, FC Barcelona . "He's almost like a gift from God," said his national coach. The world, at least the part of him that cares about football , had decided to embrace Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana, born on July 13, 2007, in a Barcelona suburb, the son of a construction worker from Morocco and a waitress from Equatorial Guinea. Then came July 12, 2025.