Lamine Yamal🤪

"Between One Match and Another"

I'm not sure when I started to see him differently. Maybe it was that day, after training, when we found ourselves in the rain outside the sports center, laughing like two carefree kids. He was just "Lamine" to me, not "Yamal", not the talent that everyone looks at with eyes full of expectations.

We met almost by chance. A mutual friend, a match we watched together, a dinner that went on until late at night. At first it was simple: messages, a few meetings, laughter. Then, slowly, it became more.

Being with him is not like being with anyone else. There are days when we can't see each other for weeks. Others when I watch him on TV, while he does magic with the ball, and I feel proud but also distant. And yet, every time he comes back, even just for one night, it's as if time hadn't passed.

One evening, after an important match, he came to me in silence. He didn’t say anything, he just hugged me. His face was tired, but in his eyes there was that spark of when you really trust someone.

And I realized that, in his world full of spotlights, maybe I was becoming the only space where only Lamine could be.

“Off the Field” (Part 2)

Talking to Lamine had become complicated. When he wasn’t on the field, he was in flight. When he wasn’t in flight, he was surrounded by people: managers, friends, fans. And then there was her.

I didn’t even know her name at first. Only that she always appeared in his stories, laughed too close to him, touched him too familiarly. Lamine said she was just a colleague, “someone from the agency”.

Until that night...