The football pitch where Spain forward Lamine Yamal developed his game in a working-class, multicultural neighborhood outside Barcelona was alive with excitement Thursday as residents looked ahead with pride to the World Cup final against Lionel Messi's Argentina.
"Now that the moment has finally come for them to play against each other, it's incredible," said Keba, an 18-year-old resident of Senegalese descent, referring to Yamal's long-standing admiration for Messi.
Messi, 39, spent the most successful years of his career at Barcelona after rising through the club's famed youth academy.
A now-viral photograph of the Argentine icon bathing a baby Yamal, now 19, has only added to the anticipation surrounding Sunday's World Cup final in New Jersey.
As children from migrant families played on a pitch behind a mural of Yamal in the Rocafonda neighborhood in the coastal city of Mataró, his grandmother, Fatima Nasraoui, and his 15-year-old cousin, Rayan, watched from a nearby bench.
"I want Spain to win," she said, adding that she would shout loudly if he scores.
"To me, Lamine means many good things, but above all he's like a brother because we grew up together," his cousin said.
Yamal, who was born in Spain to a Moroccan father and an Equatorial Guinean mother, has never forgotten his roots. Throughout his career, he has honored Rocafonda with his trademark "304" hand gesture after scoring goals, a reference to the neighborhood's postal code.
During the World Cup, he has worn a headband bearing the word "Rocafonda," displayed the flags of his parents' countries of origin on his boots and said football is an example of racial and social integration.
