"I would even risk saying he will be ready for the first game." That's Luis de la Fuente, Spain's head coach, speaking to Mundo Deportivo about Lamine Yamal — and given how this hamstring scare unfolded, that's a significant statement.
Yamal went down on April 22 during Barcelona's 1-0 win over Celta Vigo. The cruelest timing: the injury came while he was scoring the winning penalty just before half-time. A hamstring, on a penalty run-up. At 18. With the World Cup six weeks away.
Yamal feared the worst — and he was right to
"I was afraid that it was something serious or that it could relapse and that I would miss the World Cup," Yamal admitted to the RFEF. He said he'd never had a hamstring injury before, which made the uncertainty worse. First-time hamstring injuries in young players don't always follow a clean timeline.
Barcelona moved quickly to manage expectations, confirming he'd miss the rest of La Liga but projecting World Cup availability. De la Fuente says he was in daily contact with the club throughout the recovery. That level of coordination matters — Spain weren't going to rush him, but they clearly weren't planning around his absence either.
The numbers explain why. This season, Yamal put up 24 goals and 18 assists across all competitions. At 18. He's not a promising youngster anymore — he's Spain's most dangerous attacking outlet, full stop. Any odds on Spain going deep in this tournament are built around him being fit and available from the jump.
Spain arrive as European champions, chasing history
Spain beat England to win Euro 2024, but their World Cup record since lifting the trophy in South Africa in 2010 tells a harder story: three tournaments, three first-knockout-round exits. The group stage draw puts them against Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, and Uruguay — a winnable group, but Uruguay are no formality.
Yamal himself is clear on the mindset coming in: "Ever since the European Championship ended, we've all been thinking about this day." That's not a platitude. For a squad this young, this is the moment they've been pointed toward for two years.
Before the tournament starts on June 11 in Mexico City, Spain face Iraq and Peru in warm-up fixtures — the kind of low-stakes run-outs that will tell De la Fuente everything he needs to know about whether Yamal is truly ready or just available.
