World Cup 2026: How Spain’s Lamine Yamal is ignoring Lionel Messi comparisons

There is something obvious about Lamine Yamal that his coaches at Barcelona’s academy, La Masia, understood long before the rest of the world caught up.

He is listed as a winger. He terrorizes the full-backs from the left wing. His dribbling numbers are at an elite level. Yet when CBS asked him how he played as a kid, the answer felt like a revelation.

“When I was little, I didn’t dribble a lot or pass a lot of opponents. I scored a lot of goals, ran a lot, but most of all I had a very good vision of the game,” he said. “I focused on what Messi was doing because he was making different passes, passes that lead to goals. And I looked at Modric, who was passing with the outside of his foot. That seemed more interesting to me than dribbling because it’s more about the mind.”

Modric. Neither Arjen Robben, nor Franck Ribery, nor any of the great forwards he can exemplify. A deep midfielder whose genius is spatial. He is an actor that Yamal watched and thought about in his childhood.

Albert Puig, one of his coaches at Barcelona’s academy, understood this years ago.

“Lamine expresses himself better when he has transitional sentences and some references in front of him,” Puig said. “I think he can improve like Messi: getting closer to the game, being in touch with the ball and being more involved.”

The data is starting to confirm this. Over the last two seasons, Lamine Yamal has moved more and more into the interior as a second playmaker as well as a winger.

Julen Guerrero, who worked with him in Spain’s infrastructure system, was not surprised by the direction of the trip.

“Of course I can imagine him as a false nine,” Guerrero said. “But it’s a less comfortable position because teams block the center more, there’s less space, you have to be more patient. But he’s very smart. He knows how to move.”

The winger’s role rewards tempo and isolation. The central role rewards everything Lamine Yamal was interested in as a child: vision, timing, the goal-scoring pass without leaving your feet.

Messi made just that journey. The greatest club team in history, from right wing to false nine, from wing to midfield.

It took him until his mid-20s to complete it. Laminated Yamal may not need that long.

The World Cup is approaching. Lamine Yamal will be 18 when he arrives and will not turn 19 until the day before the first semi-final on July 14.

Spain will go there as one of the favorites built around him.