Lamine Yamal's performance at the ongoing European Championships is set to boost football in Equatorial Guinea, says the country’s football federation.
The 16-year-old, who has stunned the world with his displays in Germany, plays for Spain despite having an Equatoguinean mother and a Moroccan father.
He was born in Barcelona, where he grew up and is coming through La Masia academy for the five-time European champions, with whom he recently concluded his first season of action.
"Even though Lamine is not playing for Equatorial Guinea, we hold him very close in our hearts and think he is going to do many things for Equatoguinean football," Venancio Tomas Ndong Micha, the country’s football federation president, told BBC Sport Africa.
"We are enjoying his extraordinary performances at the Euros, on top of the great season with FC Barcelona. "He has our roots, and this shows that we are a country of good footballers," added Ndong Micha.
Entrusted with dead-ball situations for a major European football nation despite his tender age, Yamal has shown his all-around ability with his stunning goal against France and assists in the games against Croatia, Georgia and Germany.
He is set to play the final against England on Sunday, a day after he turns 17, making him the youngest player to contest a final at either the Euros or World Cup.
Pele is the youngest to play in a World Cup Final. He was 17 years 249 days when he played in Brazil's 5-2 triumph over Sweden in the 1958 final, when he scored twice.
Yamal's record as the youngest goal scorer at a Euros (aged 16 years 361 days) will be very hard to beat. As will his feats at Barcelona – for whom he is the youngest player to start a league game (16 years and 38 days) – and in La Liga, where he is the youngest scorer in history (16 years and 87 days).
'He is not forgetting his roots'
Equatorial Guinea is a country split into two parts, with the capital Malabo located on one of its island areas while the largest city on its African mainland section is Bata, where Yamal’s mother was born.
She eventually found her way to Spain where she was working as a waitress when she met his father, from whom she has since separated.
While his mother and grandmother live in Barcelona, the rest of Yamal’s maternal family are still in Equatorial Guinea, a country which has reached the knock-out stages at the last two Africa Cup of Nations despite its small stature.
Three years ago, Equatorial Guinea’s football federation (Feguifoot) tried to secure the winger’s services for the team currently ranked 89th by Fifa, only to discover they were far behind Spain, who play England in Sunday’s European Championship final.
"We contacted the family in 2021 but the advances with the Spanish football federation had gone very deep," Ndong Micha explained.
"But we did try, because I am a good friend of the family by chance – particularly the grandfather – and all the family used to talk about the kid.
"Then, there were also the Moroccans who went after him... but the Spanish beat us."
Faouzi Lekjaa, the president of Morocco’s football federation, has explained how their attempts to secure Yamal last year ended in defeat, given the teenager's firm desire to play for Spain.
Nonetheless, both African countries remain close to Yamal’s heart – as can be seen by the presence of their respective national flags on the football boots his feet dazzle in.
“This shows that even though he is playing for Spain, he is not forgetting his Equatoguinean roots,” added Ndong Micha.
IMAGE SOURCE: AFP
Image caption: His boots nod to his parents' home countries - Morocco and Equatorial Guinea
Ndong Micha believes that Yamal is placing his mother’s nation firmly in the global spotlight, saying it echoes Ansu Fati’s breakthrough at an early age, also at Barcelona when people learnt about his family’s country Guinea-Bissau.
"His performances – coupled with those in the Barca first team – show that Equatorial Guinea has an extraordinarily different way of playing to most African countries," argues Ndong Micha.
"Given his talent and his roots, we could one day have more players like Lamine here."
Yamal is not the first Spain-based player with Equatoguinean roots to hit the headlines this year, after Emilio Nsue stunned global observers when finishing top scorer at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations aged 34.
Far less welcome global headlines followed last month, when Fifa ruled that the striker had never been declared eligible to play for Equatorial Guinea, for whom he is top scorer with 22 goals.
Nonetheless, his goals helped the "National Thunder" reach the final 16. The nation of under two million people has reached the knock-out phase at all four Afcons they have contested.
"We have to continue preparing well," says Ndong Micha.
"The government will soon invest in football academies so that we can unearth more Lamines and Emilios in future. It is prepared to keep investing as it has in recent years to continue searching for natural talent from Equatorial Guinea, but particularly in the country itself.
"Prior to my arrival, we had never qualified for a Nations Cup on our own merits – only as a host nation (twice) – but we have now qualified twice for Afcon outright (in 2021 and 2023).
"On a sporting level, with Fifa, the Confederation of African Football, and our government we are going to keep growing football-wise so that in the next few years, Equatorial Guinea will be the model of a small country but a big giant-killer.”
If Ndong Micha gets his way and the tiny central African nation secures a historic first World Cup qualification, there is even a chance that Yamal could face his mother’s nation on the biggest stage one day.
IMAGE SOURCE: AFP
Image caption Equatorial Guinea may be small but it punches well above its weight in football
Source: BBC Africa