Only Pelé had managed to score the first goal of a World Cup match at eighteen years old or younger. Until Lamine Yamal arrived. The Rocafonda genius was in charge of scoring the first goal in Spain's thrashing of Saudi Arabia in Atlanta (4-0), a match where Luis de la Fuente's team shook off the bad feelings from their weak debut against Cape Verde. If against the Africans Spain couldn't even score a single goal, against the Saudis they already had three in 25 minutes. Between Lamine Yamal and a brilliant Mikel Oyarzabal, Spain thrashed in a match that became increasingly disjointed as the minutes passed, as Luis De la Fuente's team had quickly finished the job. In fact, he substituted Lamine Yamal at halftime to protect him, because the future of the national team in the World Cup depends heavily on him.

From the young Lamine Yamal and Pedri González, main hopes of the Spanish team, to legendary veterans like Leo Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Luka Modrić, still references for Argentina, Portugal, and Croatia, respectively. Few World Cups in history have had such a wide spectrum in terms of the age of the stars who will be part of it. The World Cup starting this June 11 will be the longest to date (48 teams), and also one of the most fiercely contested. Will the albiceleste" repeat the ecstasy of 2022? Will France be as superior as its starting lineup suggests? Will Brazil once again be a feared opponent by everyone? What will be the surprise team? All these predictions will depend on the role of the ten essential footballers in a tournament that will shake the planet for five exciting weeks.

Before debuting in his first World Cup and after a season with Barça in which he has re-edited the title of League champion and the Spanish Super Cup, Lamine Yamal has revealed some inner details on his personal YouTube channel. In a relaxed conversation, at different daily moments such as a car journey, the blaugrana star and the Spanish national team has confessed that he thought he would win the Ballon d'Or, which was finally awarded to Ousmane Dembélé, and has explained the positive impact that not lifting the award had on him.

The most important and anticipated sporting event of the year is almost here. On Thursday, June 11th, the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico begins, the first to be contested by 48 national teams (instead of the current 32). Three countries and sixteen cities will host the 104 matches, culminating on Sunday, July 19th (9:00 PM) with the grand final to be played at the MetLife Stadium located in New Jersey (near New York City). This event will mark a generational shift in the world of football, as it will be the last World Cup for Leo Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, among others, and the emergence of new global stars like Lamine Yamal, who will play in his first World Cup.

The FC Barcelona first team squad, the coaching staff, and the board celebrated the end-of-season dinner this Wednesday at the Restaurant Casanova Beach Club in Castelldefels, with about 150 guests. The gathering, initially planned as a celebration for the League and Super Cup titles, also ended up becoming a tribute to Robert Lewandowski, who announced his departure from the club on Saturday. In fact, he already said goodbye to the fans in the last match at Camp Nou against Betis. The Polish forward received recognition from his teammates and the coaching staff in an internal event, even though there is still one match left to play.

He who takes a flag takes a burden. Of all symbols, the colored cloths representing countries are the most epic. And although he is only 18 years old, we will agree that Lamine Yamal is fully aware of this.

Israel Katz, Israeli Defense Minister, has lashed out at Lamine Yamal for , on Monday in Barcelona. In a tweet in Spanish, Katz accused the Barça star of "inciting hatred", and resorted to the mantra that defending Palestinians is supporting terrorism. Katz has asked Barça to distance itself from it.

After a capital victory on the always charged field of Getafe (0-2), Hansi Flick gave his disciples three days off. The Barça coach has taken advantage of the break to spend a few days in Germany with his family. Dani Olmo, Joan Garcia and Eric Garcia have needed less warm clothing, deciding to rent a small boat and get wet in some corner of the Costa Brava. While his teammates enjoyed a well-deserved decompression time, Lamine Yamal began to focus on recovering from the first muscular injury he has suffered as a footballer. He suffered it shortly before halftime during Celta's visit to Camp Nou a week ago. He needed to be substituted just after converting the penalty that meant the goal of a tight victory (1-0). When he shot from eleven meters, he was already injured. The biceps femoris of his left leg had said enough at the moment he dribbled past Yoel Lago in the play that Munuera Montero punished with a penalty.

The starting eleven of Barça in the derby against Espanyol contrasted, and a lot, with what Atlético de Madrid presented against Sevilla. While the Blaugranas made some small rotations but maintained the backbone of the starting team, the Mattress makers made many rotations. This is how the story ended on the scoreboard: Barça won and left La Liga almost sealed; on the other hand, Atlético de Madrid lost in Seville. While it is true that Cholo Simeone had some notable absences, he took the Champions League into much greater account, aware that in the league tournament he has nothing left to fight for and that he prefers a starting eleven with fresh legs in the second leg of the quarter-finals.

Not even the most optimistic culers would have predicted at the start of the season that Barça would be nine points ahead of Madrid with only seven matchdays left in the League. The blaugrana lead is highly commendable, considering the long-term injuries of key players, the team's youth, and the historical proportion of players who have come up from La Masia and fill the lineups every week. Economic necessity forced them to look for sporting virtue at home, and indeed, Barça has found it.

While Barça sealed the league by winning the derby, its Champions League rival, Atlètic de Madrid, lost in Seville with a team full of substitutes and youth players from the academy. With seven matchdays left in the championship, Simeone's team is exactly 22 points behind the leader, but the coach did not seem disheartened. "I have a plan and I will not deviate," he warned.

"I know that [the chants] were directed at the opposing team [Egypt], but as a Muslim person, it is still a lack of respect and something intolerable [...]. To those who sing these things: using religion as a mockery leaves you as ignorant and racist people," published the Barça star and pillar of Luis de la Fuente's team on his social media on Wednesday. On Tuesday, after the match against Egypt and the globally shameful scene that occurred in the confrontation against the North African team, the footballer left the Espanyol stadium with his head down and without greeting the local fans. Afterwards, he passed through the mixed zone hastily, absorbed, looking at his mobile phone, barely wanting to look up to see the press who were interviewing some of his teammates. Lamine Yamal was restless.

The Islamophobic shouts at the Cornellà-El Prat stadium during the match between Egypt and Spain have gone around the world and are a very worrying exponent of the level of disinhibition of the extreme right everywhere. The case is especially regrettable because the best player of the Spanish national team and probably of the world is a Catalan of Muslim religion named Lamine Yamal, raised in the Rocafonda neighborhood of Mataró. The Barça star has sent a forceful message through social networks and has branded the "racists" and "ignorant" the scoundrels who on Tuesday chanted all sorts of insults, including to Pedro Sánchez, at the Espanyol stadium.

Right across from the church in Riudarenes, a town of just over 2,500 inhabitants, stands a farmhouse with stone walls and a beamed ceiling, over 300 years old, proudly displaying the flags of Girona and Catalonia. This is Restaurante Can Cordons. "We try to make dishes respecting traditional cuisine, but with a modern touch," says Pau Turon (Riudarenes, 2000), its owner for the last eight years. "We met at the Girona Hospitality School," replies Gerard Picard (Girona, 1995), the chef. "Even though I'm now in the dining room, I'm also a cook," Turon asserts. That's not all they share, as they are also big Girona fans, although Picard has a bit of a Barcelona side. "Now I'm a little more of a Girona fan than a Barça fan," he admits. Míchel's team visits Osasuna this Saturday (6:30 p.m., Movistar LaLiga).

"People have expected me to score 100 goals a season since I was 16; I'd like that too, but it's very difficult," Lamine Yamal said just a week ago, after scoring his first goal against Villarreal. hat trick as a Barcelona player in his third season with the first team. The winger from Rocafonda, who made the decisive goal in Barça's victory this Saturday at San Mamés, He's enjoying his best season in this regard: in the 2023-24 season he scored 7 goals in 50 matches; in 2024-25, 18 in 55 matches; and this season he has 19 in 36 matches. These figures make him the top scorer in the entire Barça squad, a statistic that speaks volumes about the Blaugrana star but, at the same time, highlights that the other forwards should improve in this area.

"Ramada Mubarak!": This is how Muslims greet each other at the start of Ramadan. During this month, eating and drinking are prohibited during daylight hours. That is, food can only be consumed in the early morning and after sunset. This year it runs from February 17th to March 19th. Lamine Yamal is among a large group of athletes who combine elite sports with fasting. This leaves their bodies much more worn out after a match than usual, increasing the risk of injury and directly impacting performance. The Rocafonda winger celebrates its second Ramadan And Barça's medical staff are working meticulously to take care of him. "We follow a clear plan: we monitor him, we see how we can help him, when he should eat, when he should train..." said Hansi Flick in the lead-up to last Sunday's Barça-Levante match, the first of four La Liga games that Lamine, at 4:15 p.m., must play while observing Ramadan. This Saturday, against Villarreal, Barça will play again at the same time. Afterwards, they will host Atlético de Madrid on Tuesday (9 p.m.) in a Copa del Rey match, but the next two league games are again at the worst possible time for footballers observing Ramadan: a visit to San Mamés on March 8 and a match against Sevilla on March 15, both scheduled – at this point – for the 5th.

The Spanish Super Cup final, a minor tournament played wherever the highest payouts are, is a key barometer of the season, a match that sets trends. Proof of this is that whoever wins it usually gains a decisive boost in the fight for La Liga. In the last four editions, the winner in Saudi Arabia went on to lift the trophy in the domestic league. And in the current edition, which will once again be decided in a Clásico between Barça and Real Madrid, it is the Blaugrana, leaders in La Liga thanks to a less brilliant (but much more solid) version of themselves, who enter the final as favorites (8 pm, Movistar). With nine consecutive victories after a A worrying setback at Chelsea's ground, Hansi Flick's team threatens to turn Xabi Alonso into another failed experiment on the Real Madrid bench, a position that in the last ten years has only been safe when occupied by Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti. The egos in the dressing room and Florentino Pérez's power leave little room for maneuver for coaches, who, if they want to survive at the Santiago Bernabéu, must limit themselves to managing and selecting the lineup.

A match between Barça and Real Madrid, the Ballon d'Or gala, or withdrawing from the Spanish national team and returning to Barcelona to recover from pubalgia. These three events, among others, made Lamine Yamal the primary target of racist insults on social media: from "dude" to "I'm dying of shit." According to the latest study by the Spanish Observatory Against Racism and Xenophobia, the Barça star is the athlete who receives the most insults based on his skin color or beliefs, among other reasons linked to hate speech. Lamine Yamal is the focus of 60% of the insults, more than double that of Real Madrid's Vinícius (29%). To a lesser extent, Real Madrid's Mbappé and Brahim Díaz, Barça's Balde, and Athletic Club's Iñaki Williams have also been targeted.

Lamine Yamal continues to expand his social media presence: the Barcelona star has now decided to launch a YouTube channel to connect directly with his fans. The Catalan striker debuted on the platform with a video showcasing his house, or rather, what is now his former home, as he explains in the video that the disarray is due to a move. The striker is relocating to the former home of Piqué and Shakira, a mansion that became the scene of a highly publicized separation. During the tour of his house, Lamine Yamal shares various personal details with the camera, such as his obsession with vanilla: "In my house, everything has to smell like vanilla. I love it." In fact, the young footballer shows how, room by room, he has air fresheners with that scent everywhere. He also reveals that his little brother's favorite spot in the house is where the caganer (a traditional Catalan Christmas figurine) with his image is located. "Whenever he came over, he would make me hold the caganer until he broke it," he explains. Interestingly, everything... house tour He does so wearing a Luis Díaz football shirt, a player who was heavily linked to Barça this summer.

In this chapter, we talk about the loves and heartbreaks of 2025. "Is this news?" is the question we often see in the comments on gossip and pop culture articles. And, obviously, these aren't headlines, but they are topics we often discuss with friends or family around a table or at a bar to review some social news stories that serve not only to keep up with the most prominent gossip, but also to talk about love, friendship, or breakups.