Rocafonda, Spain – The front page of Spain’s biggest sports tabloid Marca screamed LAMINE YA! (Lamine Now!) as speculation mounted over whether the teenage wonder boy would sign a new contract for FC Barcelona.
Lamine Yamal is expected to renew his contract with Barcelona before he turns 18 in July, his agent Jorge Mendes assured reporters last week.
Deco, the sporting director of Barca, denied reports that Yamal’s agent had asked that the 17-year-old be made the highest paid player in the dressing room, while Spanish media speculated that he could look forward to a 10-fold pay increase to more than 15 million euros ($17m) net per season.
Whatever the astronomical sums involved in signing the gifted winger who helped Barca clinch the La Liga title this season, it will seem a world away from the very humble beginnings of this Spanish sporting prodigy.
Yamal grew up in a poor area of Mataro, an industrial town located about 32km (20 miles) north of Barcelona, but it is a world away from the glitz and glamour of the Catalan capital.
The Barca footballer learned his craft on the streets of Rocafonda, a working-class neighbourhood of Mataro.
About half of the 11,000 people who live in this corner of Mataro are classified as “at risk of poverty”, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute. Many flats appear run down and lack basic modern-day amenities like lifts. One centre in Rocafonda offers help to children who are struggling at school.
With 88 different nationalities in the area, Arabic halal butchers are a common sight.
Evictions are a daily occurrence in Rocafonda as many households struggle to pay the rent, which averages about $1,334 per month, a fortune to many.
Gen-next inspiration
Nevertheless, football – or rather Yamal – gives people hope here.
“In Rocafonda, more Lamine Yamals and fewer evictions”, reads the graffiti at the Club de Futbol Rocafonda, the municipal football pitch.
Children play nearby, perhaps dreaming that maybe, just maybe, they could be the next Lamine Yamal.
Wearing an Argentina shirt, Mohammed Kaddouri, who is a year younger than Yamal, says the Barca football player is an inspiration to young people here.
“Since Lamine, so many people have started playing football and believe they could be like him. It is not just boys but more girls are playing football too,” he says.
His friend Damia Castillo, also 16, met Yamal when he came back to see his family, who still live in the neighbourhood.
“He always talks to us like he is a normal person, not like he is some big star. He is from here, and so are we. It makes you think, you know, maybe it could be me,” Castillo told Al Jazeera.
The Messi effect
Friends said Yamal owes his precocious talents to a baptism of fire playing in the tough streets of Rocafonda.
“Lamine learned to play so well because he started playing with bigger kids. Some of these were bigger than him, and some of them were tough kids,” says family friend Mohammed Ben Serghine.
“Despite what has happened to him with all this fame, he has remained humble, and he is good with the kids when he comes back to Rocafonda to see his family.”
We meet in the Bar El Cordobes, the local bar frequented by Yamal’s father, Mounir Nasraoui, who pops in now and again.
On the wall is a yellowing Barca shirt signed by Yamal and replete with his photograph.
Last year, the Spain winger’s father published a photograph on social media of his son, which was taken when he was a baby.
Yamal was cradled by then-Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi. He wrote on social media: “Two beginnings of two legends. It now appears amazingly prescient.”
The Argentina superstar was 20 at the time and had taken part in a promotional campaign for FC Barcelona for UNICEF. Yamal was only five months old when his parents entered him into a raffle and he was paired up with Messi. Yamal’s smiles won over a nervous Messi at the photoshoot.
Statistically, Yamal is ahead of Messi for a 17-year-old player, according to football writer Ryan O’Hanlon of ESPN.
“Broadly, this is the conclusion: [Michael] Owen, Kylian Mbappe and Yamal are the best teenagers in modern soccer history,” he wrote, basing these assertions on the number of goals and assists.
‘304’ celebration
Rocafonda might have been forgotten, like many other fringe, outer-suburban Barcelona neighbourhoods, were it not for Yamal himself.
On the walls, someone has painted the number 304. It might just be graffiti, except for one thing. When Yamal scored a wonder goal against France in the Euro 2024 last year, he celebrated by making the sign three, zero, four with his fingers. It was a reference to the postcode of Rocafonda, which in full reads 08304.
As the world was transfixed by Yamal’s dazzling skills, it was a sign that even when footballers can expect seven- or even eight-figure salaries, some have not forgotten their roots.
At the Bar Familia L Y 304 Rocafonda, run by the player’s uncle, Abdul, you are left in no doubt that Yamal remains faithful to where he came from.
Decked out in photographs of Yamal and signed shirts, in one corner is a tiny, plastic version of the World Cup. It begs the thought: might Yamal one day lift the real thing for Spain?
Family is everything
The player’s own story starts 30 years ago when his maternal grandmother, Fatima, arrived from Morocco and took up a job in an old people’s residence.
She worked to bring her seven children over from Morocco and managed as a single mother.
Yamal’s mother, Sheila Ebana, is from Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony in Western Africa. The player’s parents divorced, and when she moved away from Rocafonda, she enrolled him in Club de Futbol La Torreta in Granollers, a nearby town.
Yamal speaks fondly about his mother, who gave him the best childhood she could despite the difficulties she faced.
“Maybe I didn’t have the best childhood, but I didn’t see it. I only saw the beautiful, thanks to her,” he said in an Instagram interview with user tumejorjugada.
Life for both parents has changed dramatically since their son became a superstar.
Ebana now has 258,000 followers on Instagram and has moved to Barcelona. His father has also moved to the Catalan capital.
Changing expectations
Yamal started playing for CF La Torreta, a small club with 200 players, when he was only five.
On the window of the club, there is a photograph of the player when he arrived as a small child and another more recent one.
“He came here when he was five years old and stayed just two years before Barcelona came for him,” says Jordi Vizcaino, president of CF La Torreta.
“I still can hardly believe it when I see how far he has gone, when I see Yamal playing for Barca and Spain. He was just a kid when he came here and is still just a kid really.”
Rocio Escandell, president of the Association of Rocafonda Neighbours, has known Yamal and his family all his life.
“Lamine has put Rocafonda on the world map. It is a working-class area with lots of migrants, but he has made people here believe they can be something. It does not have to be a footballer. It might be a doctor. Just to believe,” she told Al Jazeera.
Her nine-year-old daughter, Abril, is proof of how Yamal has changed expectations.
“I have been playing football since I was small, and I score more and more goals. When I am older, I want to be like Lamine,” says Abril.
