2023-05-07 08:00:16
Barcelona / La Roca del VallèsFamilies gather on the terrace of the La Torreta Football Club bar. It doesn’t take long to grasp the good atmosphere: the president, Jordi Vizcaíno, keeps greeting and shaking hands with the fathers and mothers of the players, who sit in front of the pitch. The playing field is divided into zones with small fluorescent cones that glow in the mid-afternoon sun as the coaches finish setting everything up. Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana, the youngest debutant in the history of Barça, took his first steps in this humble club in a neighborhood of around 2,000 inhabitants, which has 15 teams and a hundred players. Of Moroccan father and Equatoguinean mother, he was born in Esplugues (July 13, 2007), but grew up between Mataró and Granollers.
His mother, Sheila, worked in a fast food chain in Mataró, but, for work, she moved to Granollers. It would be in this city, in an establishment of this same chain of fast food, where Sheila shared a working day with the daughter of the club’s coordinator, Inocente Díez, although she prefers to be called Kubala, a nickname she earned as a youngster playing soccer. From time to time, Lamine Yamal’s mother also took her son to eat sweets at La Sorpresa, where relatives of Rafa Rodríguez, former president of La Torreta, work. “While his mother was standing in line to shop, he would pass the time by kicking the ball against the front wall,” Rodríguez recalls. It was like this, based on word of mouth, that Lamine Yamal’s parents decided to enroll him, at an early age, in the club’s academy.
“He was three or four years old; it’s hard to see then if he will be very good, but I do remember that you had to tell him to let the ball go, he always had it attached to his foot,” explained Díez to Granollers Nation. “His father, Mounir, played soccer very well. He was the best when we organized tournaments with the players’ parents,” adds the ex-coordinator in conversation with ARA. From 2009 to 2014, Lamine Yamal played for La Torreta, which despite being a humble club, is on the list of entities that oversee the vistaries of the area and there are several players who have been signed by clubs such as Damm, Granollers , the Mercantil or San Gabriel.
“We are a small club, but we are proud of the way we take care of and work with the young people,” remembers Cristóbal Camenforte, president of the organization when Lamine Yamal arrives. As in any other club, fees are charged at La Torreta to cover expenses, although there are families with less resources who cannot always afford it. “If the families tell us about their situation, we understand and try to help them. We will not leave the child without playing,” explains Camenforte.
Although Lamine Yamal’s parents were not always able to take care of the fees, the club understood his situation. He was able to continue playing football and would soon stand out. Isidre Gil, who has been following lower category players in the area for years, combining his work with that of a storekeeper, wrote a report for Barça in January 2014. “It was a matter of two or three weeks. They came to see us and told us that they wanted to sign him. They were clear about it,” explains Rodríguez, then president of La Torreta.
Normally, Barça holds test matches with several players to see if they sign them for the squad, as they did, for example, with Leo Messi; but in the case of Lamine Yamal he went directly to form part of the Blaugrana pre-benjamí, recalls Rodríguez. In exchange for the signing, Barça undertook to participate in a juvenile tournament organized by La Torreta and also loaned them a player, from this same category.
The signing of Lamine Yamal by Barça and a special regime
“When they’re so young, you’re not sure if you’ll get it right, but it was clear to us that we had to sign him,” explains Jordi Roura, who was responsible for Barça’s training football at the time. “It didn’t take much for him to adapt his creativity and originality to Barça’s football philosophy, based largely on positional play and the rondo”, explains Jordi Font, who coached Lamine Yamal at Benjamí A. “No he was just very off-balance and stood out for his technical conditions, but also for the way he profiled or the way he looked before receiving the ball.”
Some virtues to which Roura adds “the ability to make decisions or solve situations during a match that even surprise the technicians”. Font, being from Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, often took Lamine Yamal to matches or tournaments. He was going to pick him up next to the municipal football field in Rocafonda, Mataró neighborhood where the player’s father lives after separating and where he was waiting because he didn’t have his own transport. During the week, travel, as in other cases of players from other parts of Catalonia, is done by taxis provided by the club.
When he entered the fry stage, both his representative at the time, Iván de la Peña, and the management of La Masia, headed at that time by Xavi Martín, considered that it was best to propose to the parents that he enter live in La Masia. It was an exceptional case, because this is not usually done with players who do not live far from Barcelona. Barça had already done it before with footballers like Ilaix Moriba, who lived in the Torre Baró neighborhood, or Alejandro Balde, who grew up in Sant Martí de Provençals, although in the case of the full-back it was a mixed regime. “It was about being able to accompany the player more in aspects such as food and studies,” explains Martín to ARA.
The expulsion of the Spanish under-17 team for an act of indiscipline
Having coincided with footballers such as Ansu, Balde or Gavi in the squad also helps his early landing in the first team, with whom he will continue training next year. Now the Spanish under-17 team has called him up for the European Championship, after being expelled in the last call-up for reasons of indiscipline. Together with two other colleagues they made several prank calls to the expedition’s psychologist. This also cost him being apart for four games from the youth A. “I remember him as a rather quiet boy, very respectful of his teammates. I was very surprised by the episode with the under-17s,” explains Jordi Font.
From Sant Joan Despí they emphasize that he has already learned his lesson and, in fact, Lamine Yamal this Saturday also made his debut with the subsidiary, despite being 15 years old, an age that corresponds to the cadet stage. “He has played longer in football 7 (five seasons) than in football 11 (doesn’t reach four years)”, details Jaume Marcet, Barça TV journalist. “When the junior A stage ends, it goes straight to the cadet A from the beginning of the season, which I’ve never seen before. The cadet A is having a spectacular year. And then he skips the youth B to go directly to youth A. It’s an exceptional case,” he adds.
The next step is for Barça to make official a renewal which is practically sealed and which involves a strong bet by the club for what many define “as the most distinctive talent at La Masia since Messi”. Represented by Jorge Mendes, the footballer has received the interest of clubs such as Real Madrid – in fact, his father is a supporter of the white club – but Barça has ensured that he remains a Blaugrana player. Meanwhile, in La Torreta, they live it with a pride that is as sincere as it is humble.
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