Perfection, by Lamine Yamal

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A tear in the universe has opened up at the Allianz Arena.

A space that was not visible to the other 21 players on the pitch, including French goalkeeper Mike Maignan, or the 75,000 fans in the stands, suddenly appeared. When it happened, Pedri, on the Spanish bench, raised his clasped hands from his neck to his face. He looked frightened by what he had just witnessed. Frightened by the portal to a new dimension that his teammate Lamine Yamal had opened with his left foot. The portal to a Euro final. The portal through which Yamal’s immense potential could be glimpsed.

Time travelled with the ball, from the outside to the inside of the post. Yamal was 13 at the last Euro, three years ago. He watched Spain lose the semi-final to Italy in a shopping centre with his friends. Dani Olmo, the man of the match that game, missed a penalty in the penalty shootout. But in Munich, Yamal showed that another reality was possible.

Olmo scored the winning goal against France. His goal was magnificent in its dexterity, its elusiveness, its affirmation of Spanish technical supremacy. Olmo played with the confidence of someone who has scored three times in a row. But France was also in a state of sheer disbelief and disorientation.

Four minutes earlier, Yamal had cancelled out France’s opener. Up until that point, everything seemed to indicate that this would be Kylian Mbappé’s night. Mbappé had thrown his mask away like a gladiator would throw one onto the bloody sands of the Coliseum. A statement of intent. His vision was no longer hampered by the “horrible” accessory he had been forced to wear to protect a broken and bruised nose. In less than ten minutes, Mbappé had even allowed Randal Kolo Muani, a player who had missed a one-on-one in the 2022 World Cup final, let alone another against Portugal four days earlier, to finally score.

We have become accustomed to no one coming back against France in this tournament. That is not what they should be doing anyway. The only goal Maignan has conceded so far was a penalty from Robert Lewandowski, Yamal’s Barcelona teammate, in the 1-1 draw with Poland. Maignan had saved Lewandowski’s first shot, but the referee had ordered it taken back for encroachment. To beat him would have required something truly special. Something extraordinary. “We were in a difficult period,” Yamal admitted. “Nobody expected to concede a goal so early.”

When a Fabian Ruiz roulette ended in a tangle 30 yards from goal, Yamal picked up the ball and stepped forward to pierce the enthusiasm behind the French goal. “I got the ball and I didn’t think about it, I tried to put it where it was going, and I’m just very happy.”

Facing him, the giraffe midfielder Adrien Rabiot. Yamal clearly thought he had to calm down. The day before the match, Rabiot had declared: “We saw that he is a player who knows how to manage stress very well, he has a lot of qualities to play at club level and in a big tournament. We know what he is made of. He keeps a cool head, but it is sometimes difficult to manage a semi-final in a big tournament. It will be up to us to put the pressure on him, but we want him to get out of his comfort zone. If we want to play in a Euro final, we have to do more than what he has done so far.”

Yamal responded on Instagram with a post showing a hand moving a pawn on a chessboard. “Move silently,” the caption read. “Speak only when it’s time to say checkmate.” Yamal let his left foot do the talking. His move came in the 21st minute. Yamal first hid the ball by curling it with his left foot to get it off Rabiot, before revealing it again by pushing it inside with the outside of his same shoe.

Rabiot swayed from side to side like an Arctic crab. He held out a pair of pincers as Yamal prepared to shoot, but Rabiot caught nothing. Neither did Maignan. He covered his goal as best he could. The AC Milan goalkeeper’s gloved hand eclipsed the top corner, but it could not hide the sun, the light of Yamal’s talent. “Habla! Habla!” Yamal yelled at Rabiot. “Speak! Speak!” All the Frenchman’s speeches had been cheap. Yamal’s strike, however, was priceless. “We saw a touch of genius,” Spain coach Luis de la Fuente said.

It is common to hear people say that perfection does not exist. That it is unattainable. But Yamal’s shot challenged that idea. “His shot was Magnificent,” Didier Deschamps praised Yamal. At 16 years and 362 days, he became the youngest goalscorer in Euro history. He will turn 17 the day before the final. The only present Yamal wanted, he said, was “just to win, win, win. My goal was to be able to celebrate my birthday here in Germany. And I’m very happy to celebrate it here with the team.” He added: “I told my mother that she didn’t need to buy me a present if we managed to win the final.”

As Yamal turned and rushed towards the Spanish bench, sliding to his knees in a state of euphoria, memories of a very similar goal scored by the Barça winger against Mallorca flashed before the eyes of the Catalan journalists in the press box. But this was better. For the occasion. For the way it made Mbappé’s cheeks swell in a look of fear and helplessness. “I don’t know if it’s the best goal of the tournament,” Yamal said. “But it’s the most special for me.”

Yamal’s performance will be summed up in the analysis of a moment. Rodri, however, expanded on it. “I personally went to see Lamine and congratulated him on his performance,” he said. “People will remember this game for his goal and what he did is something that only a chosen few can do. But I personally thanked him for his defensive commitment. The recoveries, the backtracking, the way he helped the full-back. It’s exceptional for a guy his age. Personally, I really appreciate it.”

At the end of the match, the Spanish players huddled together and jumped for joy at having reached the final. Yamal, at first, stood apart from them, closer to the halfway line, like a star from a galaxy far, far away.

(Top photo: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)