Protecting Lamine Yamal: a matter of state at Barça
The emergence of Rocafonda's talent can only be compared to that of Leo Messi.
BarcelonaIn mid-August 2024, Lamine Yamal had just won the European Championship at just 17 years old. He had known his new Barça coach, Hansi Flick, for just a few weeks and was excited about the new season. He naturally handled being signed to the first team, although out of respect for his friend Ansu Fati, he refused to wear the number 10 shirt that so many people expect him to wear at some point. In the locker room, the days leading up to the official debut at Mestalla were passing peacefully. There was only one uncertainty: the registrations of Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor. Until A worrying piece of news has leaked into the club's internal communication channels.
Mounir Nasraoui, Lamine Yamal's father, had been stabbed in Rocafonda (Mataró). The incident occurred on the afternoon of August 14. That night, a Barça emissary showed up at Can Ruti Hospital, where Nasraoui was being treated. It wasn't a club executive or manager, but rather Alejandro Echevarría, the most important figure in the Barça dressing room, He has established himself as a kind of guardian angel for the players, especially the younger ones. "He arrives at 10 a.m., before training starts, and leaves at 4 p.m., when there's no one left at the Ciudad Deportiva," a person who sees him working day to day tells ARA. "With Lamine, he's doing the same thing he did with Messi when he was young," the same source specifies, referring to the almost paternal bond that Echevarría built with the Argentine star—and also with Xavi, Deco, and Eto'o—between 2005 and 2010.
Joan Laporta's former brother-in-law, who has more power than any of the executives surrounding the president, has long been the person with the most information about the locker room. Since he wants to control everything, he has the freedom to come and go, and demand explanations about anything he doesn't understand, which isn't much. He knows the sporting and personal status of each player, receives detailed reports from the club's security detail, and even negotiates the salaries of members of the club.staff"He's become the fucking boss, and as the ball goes in, he'll continue to be," they say from Sant Joan Despí. Lamine Yamal, who is the greatest hope for Barcelona fans and the current Barça government, is the goal. The goal is balance. A high-end gold-plated phone in Echevarría. And in this vein of controlling everything around the young prodigy, the president's former brother-in-law redoubled his efforts with the signing of Dani Codina as the new manager. team manager (Head of Internal Logistics). The musical chairs led to the relocation of Joel González away from the first-team locker room and the dismissal of Marc Garrell, who had suffered some logistical problems with Lamine Yamal.
![Xavi Martín: "Their performance on the pitch is due to the fact that they've all lived together at La Masia."](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 16 9"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Sins of youth that are Barça's heritage
Echevarría is the one who is most concerned about the Catalan striker, but he is not the only one. Training and protecting the most dazzling emergence in the history of La Masia—he cannot even be compared to Messi, who at 17 had only just made his debut—is equally a priority for the physios and doctors, who recommend that he follow the gym and recovery guidelines while he is still growing. Taking care of his muscles also falls under the menus that the team's nutrition manager, Sílvia Tremoleda, He designs for every day of the week and adapts to traditions like Ramadan. In the dining room at the Sports City, a space restricted only to players, coaches, Echevarría, Deco, and Bojan, they applaud Lamine Yamal for not being a sweet tooth and daring enough to eat vegetables and legumes. However, when his trusty Bluetooth speaker gets too loud at mealtime, they can't always manage to turn it down. Even Flick has had to get serious about this creature at times.
Aware of the immense talent he has in his hands, the German sometimes plays a paternal role. This season, for example, he had to be patient when Lamine Yamal criticized him for substituting him in matches like the Benfica-Barça Champions League Round of 16 clash. He also used his weekly chat room to gently reprimand him. "Champions never rest," he warned him in September, referring to his lack of interest in attending voluntary training sessions. Before Flick, Xavi also made himself available to the emerging star, convincing him of the enormous importance of running to steal the ball in the opposition's half. This very need became a rebuke for Lewandowski amid a minor internal dispute. "Just shut up and press!" Lamine Yamal told the veteran Polish striker, who is 19 years his senior.
If there's one thing they're clear about at Barça, it's that the young Barça star doesn't back down in any situation. Self-confident –"Calm down, I'm here," he said in the celebration of his goal in the classic–, he is an innate talent polished at La Masia and the Joan Gamper Sports City after The intervention of dozens of figures who have guided, pampered and accompanied him since he was 7 years old and joined the club from La Torreta. A decade later, he's become the idol of an entire generation of Barça fans and a global icon.
