An ex-director of football with the Spanish national team, Albert Luque, revealed on the Cadena SER radio program El Larguero how FC Barcelona star Lamine Yamal’s father said they "were going to kill him" in Morocco for his son choosing to represent Spain at international level instead.
Lamine was born in the Catalan town of Mataro, around 20 miles from Barcelona city center, to a Moroccan father and Equitorial Guinean mother in 2007.
Picked up by La Masia as as seven-year-old, he debuted for Xavi Hernandez’s Barca first team as a 15-year-old and went on to smash a number of records including becoming La Liga’s youngest ever goalscorer and the youngest player to both represent Spain and net in La Roja’s colours.
Things could have been quite different had Lamine chosen to represent Morocco like other Spain-born talents of Moroccan descent such as Real Madrid’s Brahim Diaz and Paris Saint-Germain’s Achraf Hakimi.
Speaking on Spanish radio on Friday, Luque shed light on the process of capturing Lamine for Spain, with the youngster’s mind already seemingly made up.
“It wasn’t an easy case. The Morocco coach came expressly [to Lamine’s camp]
and the Moroccan government tried to convince him,” Luque began.
“And when we spoke to him he told me: 'I want to be European champion, they are pressuring me from all sides but I want to play with Spain’. This was before he debuted,” Luque added.
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"The father was more complicated. He told me that in Morocco they were going to kill him. He told me some things that it is better not to talk about. His mother is the person Lamine has to lean on the most. She asked me if I wanted him to be with Spain and I lied to her, I told her that it was because he was very prepared and not because of Morocco".
With these remarks Luque, is in part confessing that Spain approached Lamine early so that he could play at least three matches for La Roja.
As per FIFA rules, this meant that he would then be ineligible to represent another nation.
While Lamine got his wish and won the Euros with Spain last summer in Germany, Brahim played for his country of birth just once ahead of switching to Morocco in 2024.
The attacking midfielder has since explained his decision, and Luque suspected that not becoming a continental champion at international level, in the same year he won the Champions League with Madrid, might have “hurt” the 24-year-old.
“A pre-list was sent to Madrid and there he was. What happened is that he was in a hurry to find out if he was called up,” Luque reminisced.
“And he finds out on the day of the call-up like any other player, but he decided to go with Morocco. We found out through a burofax. In those times maybe he played 15 minutes, then three weeks without playing.
“Did it hurt him? I think it hurt him the most not to lift the European Championship. It is not the same to play with Italy as with Kenya. He’s a player that I love. To do the same with him as with Lamine? I decided not to. Maybe I have to say that I was wrong, time will tell,” Luque concluded.