Spain looked marginally better with Lamine Yamal on the pitch last week, and the Spanish media has already begun constructing his statue in the Plaza Mayor.
The 18-year-old winger showed competence—actual, demonstrable competence—and suddenly every pundit with a microphone has declared him the chosen one. Not the next Pelé. Not the new Maradona. Those comparisons are for players who merely win tournaments. Yamal, we are told by fans with three-day-old Reddit accounts and journalists who have watched exactly two full matches, will transcend football entirely.
One decent performance and the narrative has metastasized. He will single-handedly defeat France. He will restore Spain’s midfield dominance of the 2010s through sheer force of will. He will heal the rifts in Spanish society. He will probably cure the common cold. The WhatsApp groups are already discussing whether his face should replace the current flag.
This is not hyperbole in the service of analysis. This is mass delusion dressed up as hope. Yamal is talented—genuinely so. But he is eighteen. He has played professional football for less time than most people spend in university. Yet the expectation machine has already decided his entire legacy.
When Spain inevitably loses to someone in the knockout stages, the same people now canonizing him will demand his head. That is how this works now. There is no middle ground between messiah and scapegoat, no room for the simple truth: he is a very good young player having a very good tournament. That used to be enough.