17-Year-Old Lamine Yamal Could Make History in Spain-England Euro Final

"We are impressed by what Lamine is doing. It’s an example of integration and it makes us happy that in Spain, they are so happy," Abdul, the uncle of the Spanish international, told La Vanguardia. Abdul, the eldest of five brothers, arrived in Barcelona thanks to Fátima Nasraoui, his mother and Lamine’s grandmother. "She arrived alone in Spain at the age of 40. She worked hard to bring each of her children year after year. I was the first. Then it was Mounir, Lamine’s father, who arrived when he was 9 years old," Abdul recounts.

Fátima, 73, took a ferry from Tangier to join Spain. "It was in 1990 and no special visa was required. She started working in a campsite in Llavaneres. She stayed there for two years. Later, she worked in a retirement home in Vilassar de Mar. Then, she settled in Rocafonda," adds Lamine’s uncle. Fatima has already followed Lamine’s matches at the Camp Nou. But today, she will watch the Euro final from Morocco where she is on vacation.

The Barça striker has a special relationship with his grandmother. Whenever he has a day off, he visits her in Rocafonda and always asks her to prepare scrambled eggs and breaded chicken for him. The young player recently bought her a house with a patio in Rocafonda, the neighborhood where she has lived for 30 years. In the family’s first apartment located on Plaza Joan XXIII where the Spanish international grew up, 10 people lived: Lamine and his parents Mounir and Sheila, his grandmother Fatima and his uncle Abdul, his wife and their four children.

Mounir, Lamine’s father, and Sheila Ebana, his mother of Equatorial Guinean origin, met in Mataró (Barcelona). The two had Lamine when they were 21 years old. The parents of the Barça prodigy are divorced. But they will both be present this Sunday in Berlin to experience the Euro final and support their son who is one of the promises of Spanish football. At only 17 years old, Lamine Yamal is the youngest goalscorer of the Euro after scoring a superb goal against France in the semi-final of the tournament. He hopes to repeat this feat this Sunday against England.