It’s not even on the edge of the area, in fact it’s so far away that, while for an adult a shot from there requires tremendous effort, class and confidence, for a 16-year-old it’s hard to even think that he’d dare to look at the goal, or that he’d even see it.
Where are you going, Lamine Yamal? In the semi-finals of the European Championship and losing against Mbappé’s France, where are you going? He shows the ball to his marker and indicates with his boot and body the inside route for just a few tenths of a second before opening the angle with his left foot, his implacable leg; it reminds us of Messi’s first feint in the 2015 Cup final against Athletic. Now with his good leg, and a little more vision, he has everything in his favour to look for a poisoned pass between the lines or open to the wing and send France swinging.
He can do whatever he wants within an order, following rules, adjusting to parameters, to an internal logic that essentially has to do with biology. But there is no logic, no rules, no order in the life of Lamine Yamal. The Barcelona player is the wildest emergence in world football since Pelé at 17 years old in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. He is chaos in a sport, football, which is accountable to chaos.
Lamine Yamal looks up and sees the goal in the distance. There are temptations that one can only resist if one doesn’t know about them. Obsessions that one hovers over because one doesn’t look down. At 16, whatever you want, you take, especially if you’re wearing shorts. Yamal then picks up the ball with a perfect shot; perfect in a literal way, perfect in such a way that it couldn’t go one centimetre further to the left or right, higher or lower. Sometimes shots like that come out. Sometimes one executes them in legendary settings and unforgettable moments, and those shots become immortal shots that remain in the popular imagination. That goal by the kid from Esplugues de Llobregat has already stayed. There are victories with a goal and victories without a goal: Spain reaches the final of the European Championship on the back of the best goal of the championship.
The match, which began with a strategic victory by Mbappé over Navas (it was thought that he would beat him with speed, and he played it with the offside line), turned in favour of Spain because, as against Germany, they did not lose face in the face of misfortune, gave a lesson on how to suffer without hysterics and with the ball they came back in a handful of glorious minutes. Yamal’s goal was followed by Dani Olmo’s control, adjusting the ball in the area as one adjusts life at 60, doing without what one decides is superfluous. Olmo had too much of everything and everyone in the area. He stopped it and got rid of a Frenchman so quickly that there was no time to know who he was. His whiplash was pushed by Koundé before time to the goal.
Individual and collective interpretations, many. The most dazzling is that in the reign of Mbappé, a colossal player who forced Argentina into extra time after tying them by two goals in a World Cup final, Lamine Yamal was crowned champion before his very eyes at a reckless, irresistible age. An age that anticipates an era.
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