‘We would meet at friend’s house and put on Neymar videos’: Yamal on idolising Brazilian

Lamine Yamal has opened up on his idols growing up. They were all Barca players – even if one particular Brazilian played for Santos at that time.

“At that moment I remember that Neymar was at Santos, Messi obviously… Messi, Villa, Pedro… All from Barça. Those are the first images that made me see football,” the 17-year-old said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo.

“Since I was little, with my father and my mother at home, that’s the first thing I remember. We would meet after school at a friend’s house because he had a computer and we would put on videos of Neymar.

“We would spend the whole afternoon watching there. Then I would go to sleep at my house and I would watch it at home, in my room.”

Neymar joined Barca in 2013, when Yamal was aged six. The Brazilian went on to win two La Liga and one Champions League titles with Blaugrana before moving on to PSG. His four years at Camp Nou yielded a lot of memories for Barca fans – and Lamine was one of them.