Lamine Yamal, born in 2007, is a Spanish winger who has won the 2026 World Cup, Euro 2024 and three La Liga titles with Barcelona. He was named player of the match in Barcelona’s 4-1 win at Galatasaray in the Champions League on 13 October 2026.
Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana was born on 13 July 2007 in Esplugues de Llobregat, in the Barcelona metropolitan area. His father, Mounir Nasraoui, comes from a village between Larache and Ksar el-Kebir in Morocco, and his mother, Sheila Ebana, is from Bata in Equatorial Guinea. His compound first name honours two family friends, Lamine and Yamal, who helped his parents financially shortly before he was born. As a baby he took part in a 2007 UNICEF charity photo shoot with Barcelona, in which he was bathed by a 20-year-old Lionel Messi, and the pictures went viral in 2024.
His paternal grandmother, Fatima, who migrated from Tangier to Spain in 1990, played a large part in his upbringing after his parents separated, managing his daily routine and making sure he could attend training. He started playing at four with La Torreta in Granollers and was scouted by Barcelona at six, joining the La Masia academy in 2014. His goal celebration, a hand gesture showing the number 304, refers to the last three digits of the Rocafonda postcode 08304, and his success has brought pride to that working-class neighbourhood in Mataró. His boyhood idols were Ronaldinho, Messi and Neymar.
He made his first-team debut on 29 April 2023, replacing Gavi in the 83rd minute of a 4-0 La Liga win over Real Betis. At 15 years, nine months and 16 days he was the youngest player to appear for Barcelona since 1922. A fortnight later he was part of the squad that won the 2022-23 La Liga title. He broke through fully in 2023-24, and under manager Hansi Flick he helped Barcelona win a domestic treble in 2024-25: La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de España. Barcelona kept the league title in 2025-26, and he was named La Liga Player of the Season.
Individual honours have followed quickly. At 17 he became the youngest player nominated for the Ballon d’Or, and he won the Kopa Trophy for the world’s best young player in both 2024 and 2025. At 18 he finished runner-up in the 2025 Ballon d’Or and was also runner-up for The Best FIFA Men’s Player. He won the Laureus Breakthrough of the Year award in 2025 and Young Sportsperson of the Year in 2026, and won the Zarra Trophy for 2025-26, awarded to the best Spanish scorer in La Liga.
For Spain he made his senior debut in 2023 and, at 16, became the youngest player to represent the country. At Euro 2024 he became the youngest scorer in the tournament’s history and won the Young Player Award as Spain claimed a fourth European title. At the 2026 World Cup, his first, he won the trophy, and in the final he faced Messi, the man who had bathed him as a baby, in a game Spain won 1-0 against Argentina.
His form this season has continued. He was named player of the match when Barcelona came from a goal down to beat Galatasaray 4-1 in Istanbul in the second round of Champions League league-phase games, after a quiet first half, and Barcelona had earlier beaten Feyenoord 5-1. With a club contract and a national-team record that already look unusual for his age, he is among the most closely followed footballers in the world right now.
Image: Lamine Yamal in action for Spain at the 2026 World Cup (file photo). Photo: Bryan Berlin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
