Before his Barcelona glory, childhood coach Lamine Yamal identified him as a “one in a million” talent and drove him to training sessions whenever his father couldn’t.

Before Barcelona glory, coach Inocente Diez drove Yamal to training when his father couldn’t, sharing football talks that foreshadowed a remarkable future / Image: FIFA Long before Lamine Yamal became one of soccer’s most recognizable young stars, his journey depended on people recognizing something special in a little boy who simply refused to leave the field. At La Torreta, where his childhood revolved around football, a handful of coaches witnessed the beginnings of a remarkable talent, while one of them sometimes drove him to training when his father was unable to, sharing Barcelona talks with the boy who made history.

The boy who wanted nothing more than a ball

Inocente Diez, youth coordinator at CF La Torreta, remembers the autumn afternoon when Mounir and Sheila brought their four-year-old son Lamine Yamal to the club, hoping to sign him up for football. Before the world knew his name, before Barcelona became the stage for his extraordinary rise, Diez had a simple task: put the little boy on the pitch and find out what happened when the game started.What followed offered an early glimpse into the mind of a kid whose relationship with the ball seemed to leave little room for anything else. Diez recalled how some children cried, others played with rubber balls or grass, and most of them were distracted by something around them, while Yamal wanted the ball, took it from his teammates and pursued goals with an intensity unusual for his age.“We put him on the field to see what he could do. Some kids cry, some start playing with rubber balls or grass, most get distracted. All he wanted was the ball and he would even take it from his teammates. He was obsessed with the ball and all he wanted to do was score goals. When practice ended, he didn’t want to be constantly told to leave the field.”Diez understood that the difference went beyond enthusiasm, as the boy’s movements, positioning and understanding of football seemed remarkably developed for someone still learning how to navigate childhood. From day one, he considered Yamal “exceptional,” describing a player whose instincts set him apart from the other kids even before anyone could imagine the extent of his eventual accomplishments.“He was different from the others: the way he moved, the way he positioned himself, the way he understood the game despite being so young. He’s one of those people born under a lucky star: one in a million. It’s crazy,” Diez said.

At four years old, Yamal could no longer be ignored, so coach Inocente Diez was impressed by his natural instincts and obsession with the ball.

Roads that mattered off the training ground

Those early years at La Torreta also hinged on practical kindness, the kind that rarely enters a footballer’s public biography but can quietly determine whether a child makes it onto the pitch. When Yamal’s father couldn’t take him to practice, Diez picked him up by car and helped the young player continue his soccer routine while his parents dealt with their work commitments.The age gap between them was considerable, with around fifty years separating the experienced youth coordinator from the aspiring footballer in the passenger seat. Yet their conversations found common ground in the game itself as they discussed footballers and Barcelona’s results during drives that linked his small-town childhood to the club whose colors would eventually define Yamal’s professional career.There was something quiet about those journeys, as Barcelona already occupied a place in the boy’s footballing imagination, while those around him worked to push his development forward. Diez’s daughter also worked alongside Yamal’s mother at a fast-food restaurant, another connection between their families that fitted the child’s ambitions into the daily rhythms of work, responsibility and community.Yamal grew up in a modest family, and his progress required the combined efforts of parents, coaches and people willing to help when circumstances made normal measures difficult. Before the extraordinary goals and record-breaking performances, there were these bland acts of support, repeated so often that they became part of the foundation beneath his rise.

Leo Giordanella and the battle to teach the prodigy to pass

Another important figure in Yamal’s early football education was Leo Giordanella, an Argentine coach whose own journey to the sideline began far from the spotlight of professional football. Born in 1992 in Cipolletti, Patagonia, Giordanella came to Barcelona with his family in the early 2000s, initially playing handball, the main sport at Granollers, before moving to basketball and eventually football.His friends encouraged him to continue playing after realizing his abilities, and at fifteen or sixteen he joined CF La Torreta, where he was subsequently given the opportunity to coach the youth team alongside his girlfriend. The coaches themselves were still minors, which meant that Giordanella sometimes depended on his father or the players’ parents for transportation before his girlfriend got her driver’s license and the three of them began traveling to games together with the young Lamino.“We were minors ourselves, so my father or one of the parents would drive us to practice,” said Giordanella, who later worked as a truck driver and remained a devoted soccer fan.Giordanella first met Yamal at an informal soccer game in the park, where the boy’s father sometimes came with friends and brought his young son with him. He remembered a small child with long curly hair chasing a ball that seemed too big for him, an image that captured the simplicity of Jamal’s earliest football days.“My friends and I used to go to play football in the park. It happened that Lamine’s father went to the same place with his friends and sometimes he brought Lamine. He was cute because he was this little kid with long curly hair who ran after the ball all day. The ball was bigger than him,” Giordanella told FIFA.Even at that age, Yamal seemed to have technical instincts that didn’t require the usual patient familiarization with the basics. Giordanella recalled a youngster who could stop the ball, turn, perform leaps and at five or six was already scoring delicate chips over the goalkeeper, making matches look like performances in which he repeatedly became the central attraction.“He was stopping the ball, turning, making jumps and at five or six he was already scoring chips over the goalkeeper. He stood out. Every game was a show.”But for Giordanella, coaching the gifted youngster was a constant challenge, as Yamal’s instinct was to hold the ball and solve situations himself, rather than immediately involve his teammates. He benched him two or three times only to watch him come back and change the course of games, a decision that later amused people who struggled to understand why a coach would leave out such a talent.Giordanella explained that the purpose was to encourage teamwork, limit individualism and introduce the principles of tiki-taka so that the youngster understood that football can require cooperation as much as individual brilliance.

From La Torreta to Barcelona and to meet Messi

Diez recognized the same tendency and traced Yamal’s individualism to hours spent alone with his father’s dogs in the park or dribbling around dining room chairs at home. The kid gradually began to understand when a pass could help his team, and Diez recalled how amazing the results were when the goals and assists started coming together.“He was a bit of a maverick, because he was used to playing alone with his father’s dogs in the park or dribbling around the chairs in the cafeteria, but eventually he understood that he had to pass. When he started assisting, it was completely crazy. By the end of the game, he scored several goals and added several assists. Sometimes he would score a teammate to dribble the ball past the goalkeeper.”In 2014, at the age of seven, Yamal joined Barcelona’s youth academy after trying out with Espanyol and choosing the Catalan club instead. That decision began a journey that would eventually take him from the pitches of La Torreta to the biggest stages of European football, where he became European champion at seventeen years and one day and established himself as a leading figure for both Barcelona and Spain.By the time he was nineteen, Yamal had already made history at both the European and FIFA World Cups, becoming European Champion at seventeen years and one day before reaching the 2026 World Cup final with Spain. His achievements placed him among international football’s defining young talents, while the final against Argentina carried a particularly personal connection through Lionel Messi, Yamal’s idol, whose own history with the youngster dates back to a remarkable photograph taken in 2007.The footage showed a then 19-year-old Messi bathing three-month-old Yamal, creating one of football’s most remarkable matches between two generations of extraordinary talent. Reflecting on the photo before the final at the New York New Jersey Stadium, Messi remarked: “The photo is crazy”, before offering a wider appreciation of the young Spaniard’s achievements and future.

Soccer star Lionel Messi, 20, helps bathe Lamine Yamal, who was just six months old at the time, during a photo shoot in September 2007 in the dressing room of the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, ​​Spain. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

“Lamine is a phenomenal player. I watch him closely because he plays for a club I love and I always wish him the best. He is one of the best players in the world and he is only 19. He has his whole career ahead of him and he has a great opportunity to make history,” Messi said on the eve of the final.The connection between Argentina and Yamal’s story goes back further than that famous photo, as his first coach, Leo Giordanella, was himself an Argentine who helped shape the young Spaniard’s earliest footballing years. With Yamal now reaching the FIFA World Cup™ final against Argentina, the occasion brought Giordanello’s loyalties into sharp focus, placing his affection for his former pupil alongside his enduring love for his country and Lionel Messi. “I have mixed feelings,” he admitted. “I’m Argentinian through and through and I love Messi, but I also have a lot of affection for Lamine.“Spain gave me life but I can’t forget where I was born and grew up. I sent a message to Lamine that I love him a lot but I also love my country and if he scores against Argentina I will kill him,” he said jokingly.