Barcelona Prodigy Lamine Yamal Chose Spain Over Morocco, Former Official Reveals

Lamine has always been clear about his choice to represent Spain. Luque remembers what he had told him. "Don’t worry, I’m getting pressure from everywhere, but I want to play with Spain," recalls the former sports director of the Spanish federation during his stint on the El Larguero show on la Cadena SER. The young talent had also confided to him his dream of winning the Euro. "The Moroccan coach came especially and the Moroccan government tried to convince him and when we talked to him, he told me: ’I want to be European champion, I’m getting pressure from all sides, but I want to play for Spain’," revealed Albert Luque. He even wrote European champion last summer after turning his back on Morocco.

But the decision to defend the colors of La Roja was not easy. "It’s not a simple case," acknowledged the former sports director of the Spanish federation. He had a hard time convincing the player’s father. "The father was more complicated than the mother, he told me that in Morocco, they were going to kill him. He had the most trouble accepting it. He told me things... better not to say anything," Luque revealed. The latter even had to lie to Sheila Ebana, Lamine’s mother. "She’s the person Lamine has to rely on the most. She asks me a question and I don’t know what to answer, so I lie to her: ’Do you want him to go to the A team because he’s really ready or because you don’t want him to play for Morocco?’ We liked the players to go through all the categories. I told her: ’He’s totally ready. Morocco? Not at all.’ It was a little lie," he confessed.

Lamal and his parents were apparently not seduced by the project of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF). "We met with his parents. We presented our project to him and his family, but Lamine was already convinced to go with Spain. Spain and Morocco are only 14 kilometers apart, it is normal that this kind of situation occurs," Fouzi Lekjaa, head of the FRMF, had declared.