Sport10 min(s) read
Published 12:14 14 Jul 2026 GMT
Lamine Yamal wakes at 4:00am during Ramadan to eat before sunrise, has a pre-match meal his mother has cooked for him since he was a child, and came back from a hamstring injury in six weeks to play at his first World Cup.
He turned 19 yesterday, has already won the Euros, finished runner-up for the Ballon d'Or, inherited the No. 10 shirt at Barcelona from Lionel Messi, and helped Spain reach the semi-finals of the 2026 World Cup after a 2-1 quarter-final win over Belgium on Thursday.
Today he faces Kylian Mbappé and France at Dallas Stadium.
The two are rivals at club level through El Clásico.
On the international stage, it is a rematch of the Euro 2024 semi-final, which Spain won 2-1, with Yamal scoring one of the goals of the tournament.
So what is fuelling the best teenager in world football?
His day-to-day nutrition is managed by Barcelona's head of nutrition, Silvia Tremoleda, who has overseen his dietary plan since he broke into the first team at 15.
The focus is on slow-absorbing carbohydrates for sustained energy: oats, rice, legumes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, wholegrain bread.
Protein comes from chicken, fish, and yogurt. Everything is clean, whole, and designed to support both his performance and his physical development. He is still growing.
But the meal that matters most has nothing to do with Barcelona's nutritionists.
Before every game, Yamal eats chicken with rice and peanut sauce.
It is a traditional dish from Equatorial Guinea, the homeland of his mother Sheila Ebana.
She has cooked it for him before matches since he was a kid playing youth football in Rocafonda.
"My mom always made it for me before I played," Yamal has said.
"It's a dish that gives me strength."
It is also a genuinely smart piece of sports nutrition, whether or not that was the original intention.
The rice provides complex carbohydrates for slow-release energy.
The peanut sauce delivers healthy fats, plant-based protein, fibre, and minerals including magnesium and phosphorus.
Nutritionists Jaume Giménez and May Morón have both flagged natural peanut butter as one of the best energy sources available to a high-level athlete, provided it is free from added sugars.
Yamal's version comes from his mother's kitchen. It has followed him from local pitches in Mataró to Camp Nou, and now to the World Cup in America.
Yes. Yamal is a practising Muslim and actively observes Ramadan, abstaining from food and drink between sunrise and sunset during the holy month.
His first full observance came in 2025, when he was 17.
He asked Barcelona for permission to fast. The club said yes.
The decision was deeply personal, influenced by his close relationship with his grandmother Fatima, who was on a pilgrimage to Mecca at the time.
In 2026, Ramadan ran from February 18 through late March.
It coincided with one of the heaviest stretches of Barcelona's season.
Four consecutive La Liga fixtures kicked off at 4:15pm, with the sun not setting in Spain until somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00pm.
That meant Yamal was playing competitive football, at the highest level, during the most restrictive phase of his fast.
No food. No water. Not during the warm-up, not during the game, not at half-time.
Barcelona's response was thorough.
Tremoleda designed a personalised nutrition plan built around nighttime eating and strategic hydration.
Yamal's Ramadan routine starts at 4am, when he wakes for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal.
The focus at that hour is on slow-absorbing carbohydrates and proteins that will carry him through the fasting hours.
He goes back to sleep, then joins team training later in the morning as normal.
During permitted hours, he follows an aggressive hydration protocol using electrolyte solutions.
After sunset, he breaks his fast at his uncle Abdul's house in Rocafonda, where his extended family gathers every evening.
He was also granted a religious exemption by Islamic authorities to break the fast on matchdays, a concession permitted under Islamic law for those engaged in physically demanding work.
Yamal uses the exemption only on game days. Every other day of Ramadan, he fasts strictly.
Barcelona had done this before with Ousmane Dembélé, Franck Kessié, and Ansu Fati.
There are currently 34 Muslim footballers active in La Liga, according to Relevo.
Yamal's form during both Ramadan periods has been unaffected.
In 2025, he maintained a high competitive level throughout.
In 2026, he scored and assisted during the fasting period with no measurable drop in output.
His coach Hansi Flick said of the squad during Ramadan: "There's a great atmosphere in the locker room. Everyone takes care of each other, and I love that."
Everything about Yamal's programme is built around three things: protecting a body that is still developing, maintaining the explosive acceleration and direction changes that define his game, and managing workload across a schedule that has been relentless since he was 15.
He suffered a grade two tear to his left hamstring while scoring a penalty for Barcelona against Celta Vigo in April.
It ended his domestic season and put his World Cup participation in doubt.
Barcelona set strict conditions on his involvement with Spain, working closely with the national team's medical staff and technical director Aitor Karanka.
"We were with the Barca medical services, and we are all seeing when is the best time," Karanka said.
Yamal returned to full training with Spain at their base camp in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on June 12. Three days later, the tournament started.
He was named on the bench against Cape Verde and came on as a substitute after 70 minutes.
By the second group game against Saudi Arabia, he was starting. He scored Spain's opening goal in a 4-0 win.
"I'm at 90-80% and getting better, it doesn't go down," he told Tiempo de Juego. "I'm ready for 90 minutes. The coach decides."
In the quarter-final against Belgium on Thursday, he played the full 90.
Six games, five starts, one goal, 405 minutes. The raw numbers do not tell the full story.
His goal against Saudi Arabia on June 21 came after a moment that said as much about him as the finish itself.
The camera found him on the 360-degree screen during warm-ups and the Atlanta crowd erupted.
He was already smiling, chewing gum, completely unaware the spotlight was on him.
Less than an hour later, he had his first World Cup goal.
Teammate Alex Baena told FIFA: "Having Lamine on the pitch, whether it's for five minutes or the whole game, is extraordinary.
"What he generates simply through his presence gives us so much."
His goal contributions since Saudi Arabia have dried up, and FOX Sports pundit Alexi Lalas has been vocal in questioning whether Yamal has delivered at this tournament.
But his performances have improved with every game since his return from injury, and Spain's results tell their own story.
They went six consecutive matches without conceding a goal before Belgium's consolation on Thursday, a record clean sheet streak in World Cup history.
Every win except the Saudi Arabia and Austria games has been decided by a single goal, with two match-winners coming after the 85th minute.
Spain's performances have been functional rather than spectacular, and they have faced criticism for not matching the fluidity that won them Euro 2024.
The 2026 World Cup has generated plenty of headlines beyond the football, but Spain have ground their way through a difficult draw.
Yamal addressed the criticism directly: "Is our level the same as the Euros? I have played well many times with Barca and we have gone home, but the important thing is to win."
He also described the emotion of scoring at a World Cup with typical understatement: "I have never felt so much happiness.
"The World Cup is different and it is with your country. I never get excited, I don't cry. I cried when I got hurt, when I saw my mother cry.
"If I win the World Cup I won't cry, it's impossible."
The Golden Boot is led by Mbappé and Lionel Messi, level on eight goals apiece.
Erling Haaland finished on seven after Norway were knocked out 2-1 by England in an extra-time thriller on Saturday, with Jude Bellingham scoring twice.
Yamal's single goal puts him well behind the scorers, but his role for Spain has never been about volume.
He is a creator, a disruptor, the player opposition defences build their entire shape around.
Each of the top scorers has a very different approach to preparation.
Messi has not eaten pizza or drunk a fizzy drink in 12 years and starts every morning with yerba mate from a gourd he has carried since childhood.
Haaland ate 6,000 calories a day including beef heart and liver, slept 10 hours with tape over his mouth, meditated before every game, and wore his mother's maiden name on his Norway shirt to honor her side of the family.
Mbappé follows a regimented schedule designed by personal nutritionists and has spoken about sleeping in a specially designed low-oxygen chamber.
Yamal eats his mum's chicken and rice.
There is something about that.
Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana was born on July 13, 2007, in Esplugues de Llobregat in the Barcelona metropolitan area.
He grew up in Rocafonda, a neighbourhood in Mataró that El País described as 'forgotten, isolated, and stigmatised'.
His father Mounir Nasraoui is Moroccan, from Larache. His mother Sheila Ebana is from Bata, Equatorial Guinea.
He was given his compound name to honour two people, Lamine and Yamal, who helped his family financially shortly before he was born.
He joined La Masia as a child and became the youngest player to feature in Barcelona's first team when he debuted against Real Betis in April 2023, aged 15 years and 291 days.
He was called up for Euro 2024, scored the goal of the tournament in the semi-final against France, and won the Young Player award. He was 16.
He inherited Barcelona's No. 10 shirt ahead of the 2025-26 season, signing a contract through 2031.
He scored 24 goals and provided 18 assists across all competitions, was named La Liga Player of the Year, and finished second to Dembélé for the 2025 Ballon d'Or.
During Barcelona's La Liga title parade in May 2026, he waved a Palestinian flag from the open-top bus. In June, he was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
He turned 19 yesterday.
Today, he faces France in a World Cup semi-final in Dallas with his mother's cooking still in his system.
In a tournament that has generated headlines for travel bans and political interference from the White House, the simplest story might end up being the best one: a 19-year-old from Rocafonda, his mother's recipe, and a World Cup to win.
For more sport, follow VT.
