{"id":799083,"date":"2026-07-14T05:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T05:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/799083\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T05:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T05:35:16","slug":"pressure-no-lamine-yamal-enjoys-birthday-with-a-kickabout-and-a-show-before-france-test-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/799083\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pressure? No\u2019: Lamine Yamal enjoys birthday with a kickabout and a show before France test | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lamine Yamal\u2019s 19th birthday started with a kickabout with his mates and took in a show. He played the lead role himself, taking centre stage before a packed house in the World Cup<\/a> semi-final pre-match press conference. Walking in, he peeled back his tracksuit top like Superman to reveal the gift that he got: a huge white gold and diamond chain BA Baracas would have been proud of.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, no, I bought this for myself so it doesn\u2019t count as a gift,\u201d he said, flashing a smile at the room of journalists who he thanked for accepting the invitation to be there on his big day. A glint in his eye, he said he hadn\u2019t had many presents yet, but he knew what he wanted: \u201cA trip to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Win on Wednesday and he will get his wish. But he and his Spain teammates have just got to get past France first<\/a>. No pressure, kid. And although his coach and his captain had urged him to escape the \u201canxiety\u201d, Lamine Yamal insisted there was none. \u201cPressure? No,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Instead, there was training in the morning \u2013 the session started with him and fellow birthday boy V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz running the gauntlet of teammates pounding them on the back as they passed \u2013 and a performance in the afternoon, a teenager at ease and enjoying the press conference. After it, he said, he had arranged to go and cut his three-year-old brother Keyne\u2019s hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are much harder things in life than a football match,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a game, I know what I\u2019m capable of and I\u2019m not worried about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some game, though. Asked where this ranked among all those he has played, he replied: \u201cIn the top one.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the quarter-final, Lamine Yamal had said that far from fearing France, if anything France should fear them. Now he said that Jules Kound\u00e9, his Barcelona teammate and an opponent on Wednesday, had understood that was \u201cnormal\u201d and \u201cjust football\u201d. \u201cI was asked if there was fear and I said no, obviously not: we\u2019re European champions,\u201d Lamine Yamal said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to talk too much, we know what we have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamine Yamal and V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz run the birthday gauntlet at training. Photograph: Ricardo Nogueira\/SPP\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

So far it hasn\u2019t quite happened, and there is a hint of the urge to remedy that, seen in his manager\u2019s words. \u201cHe\u2019s 19, madre mia,\u201d Luis de la Fuente said. \u201cI would say to him: relax, enjoy it. Anxiety, out! Let him enjoy it. Lamine\u2019s great day is still to come at this World Cup. I hope it\u2019s tomorrow and, if not, in the final.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lamine Yamal hopes so too, even if he tried not to show it. He was reminded that he had scored both times he faced France before, at 16 then 17 years old, but also that he had scored only one at the World Cup so far. To which he insisted: \u201cIt\u2019s special to [have] scored in games like this and of course I accept the challenge. You lot say I am not at my best level, so you don\u2019t need to expect anything from me tomorrow. But I hope it will be a special day.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was an equally neatly delivered dig at Mariano Rajoy, albeit Lamine Yamal didn\u2019t dignify the former Spanish prime minister with a name or much of his time. In a World Cup column which is so bad as to be beyond parody even under normal circumstances, Rajoy had written that France were good, but not actually French.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to play one of the nicest games, there\u2019s no space to talk about that,\u201d Lamine Yamal said. \u201cBut if football serves any purpose it is for integration. All the more so with Spain<\/a> and France, which are examples. That\u2019s what football is for; not for talking about comments like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

So mostly they talked football, but also about him. This teenager who is somehow three years into his career, an icon already, even here. \u201cIt\u2019s very nice that football has given me the chance to be known in Chattanooga [where Spain\u2019s training base was]. I never imagined I could go somewhere in the US and be recognised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spain manager Luis de la Fuente looks on during a training session in Dallas. Photograph: Florencia Tan Jun\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lamine Yamal: big in Chattanooga. Big everywhere else in the US too, on billboards all over the place. So big that even Keyne has been a star of this tournament. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t realise,\u201d Lamine Yamal said. \u201cWhen the cameras turn to him he does silly things. He\u2019ll see it when he\u2019s older. I\u2019m happy people like him as much as I do. When I see him, it amuses me.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while that is not always ideal, although there have been moments when he has admitted that the responsibility is huge, here he embraced it. He had wanted to do this press conference, to take it on. It\u2019s part of his life now and he made it part of his day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would you say to a 10-year-old you?\u201d Lamine Yamal was asked, as if he was some wise old man. \u201cI don\u2019t know: to be himself and enjoy it,\u201d he replied. Then there was the one about fate and figures, whether he believed in numerology. After all, it\u2019s his 19 birthday, his shirt number is 19 and the final is on the 19th.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause the Portugal coach talked about that [numerology] \u2026 and then Mikel Merino turned up! I\u2019m not worried about scoring, all that matters is winning, but hopefully a goal comes tomorrow and it\u2019s a great day. What I want as a present is a win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lamine Yamal\u2019s 19th birthday started with a kickabout with his mates and took in a show. He played…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-799083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}