Lamine Yamal: why Morocco lost the battle against Spain

In an interview with RMC Sport, the former director of the Mohammed VI Academy delivered a scathing diagnosis. According to him, the Atlas Lions tried their luck much too late. "Lamine Yamal is already in the pipeline of the Spanish national team when you knock on his door," he explains. For the technician, once the player has integrated the dynamics of the Spanish first team, the chances of convincing him to change his sports nationality become minimal, estimating the probability of failure at 80%.

Nasser Larguet is convinced that an earlier approach could have changed everything. "If we had gone after Lamine Yamal at 15, I think we would have been 50-50 with Spain," he assures. This timing allowed La Roja to lock down the prodigy, who had clearly expressed his ambition to win the Euro, a dream realized last summer.

Family pressures and Spanish strategy

This analysis echoes the testimonies of the Spanish leaders, who had to maneuver skillfully in the face of the Moroccan offensive. While Francis Hernández, from the Spanish federation, claims that the player "did not hesitate," Albert Luque, former sports director, describes a more tense context behind the scenes. He revealed having had to manage the fears of the player’s father, who was under strong pressure and feared the reactions in Morocco.

To counter the attempts at persuasion by the Moroccan government and coach Walid Regragui, the Spanish federation had to accelerate the process. Albert Luque even confessed to having resorted to a "little lie" to Lamine Yamal’s mother. To convince her, he assured her that her son’s call-up to the A-team was solely due to his exceptional level of preparation and not to a political strategy to block Morocco, when the reality was more nuanced.