Lionel Messi’s shadow has loomed over Lamina Yamal throughout his life. Messi was just a toddler when a photographer arranged to film him bathing Yamal. Years later, when he stepped into Barcelona’s La Masia academy, he was Messi’s blessed heir, a winder beyond his years. Every record he broke in the league was once held by the Argentine.
But early Tuesday morning in India, when Spain take on Portugal in the World Cup knockout stages, the silhouette behind Yamal will not be that of Messi. He will be Messi’s great rival, another great and record holder in league and world football: Cristiano Ronaldo.
It’s tempting to pin the match as a clash of generations to measure how football has changed between Ronaldo’s first World Cup in 2006 and Yamal’s in 2026. But look closer, and you’ll find two very similar personalities when they were 18.
Yamal is the son of immigrant-heavy Rocafonda from Spain. He played football with his older cousins — his father was a painter — and his favorite haunt was his uncle’s bakery. Yamal first traveled outside the city when he was eight years old.
Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (7) celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the World Cup Round of 32 soccer match between Portugal and Croatia in Toronto, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Ronaldo hails from working class Santo Antonio on the island of Madeira in Portugal. He grew up sharing a bedroom with his brother and two sisters. His father was a gardener and mother a cook. At 14, he was expelled from school for throwing a chair at a teacher. He never went to school again. Ronaldo traveled by plane for the first time when he went to Old Trafford in England when he was 18 years old.
Their spirit is also not very different.
Yamal is not like Messi, a footballing recluse who shied away from bling and bluster. He lavishes parties, inviting the ire of lawmakers for roping in dwarfs to serve drinks on his 18th birthday – although he’s not obsessed with Ronaldo’s looks and hair or the folds of his jersey.
Both have an affinity for theatre. Ronaldo was all step-overs and dribbles in Manchester United’s early years, a shining gem but with unpolished edges. The surprised old-timers of the training ground left in enthusiastic tones and rediscovered their George Best reincarnation. The seniors wondered what heights he could reach. His coiled locks were dyed at the edges.
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Yamal also dyes his hair but seems to be averse to gelling. He carried an aura and air into the Barcelona dressing room that he was the best in the world. “He had this presence, the feeling and personality of someone who believed he was the best in the world. He wanted to be good at everything,” Sergio Busquets, the former Spain international, said.
After Tuesday’s World Cup game, they may never meet on the football field, but they’ve come together in an incredible effort to perform at their best. In this World Cup, Yamal has only scored one goal in four matches, though it was enough to become the youngest World Cup goalscorer since Pele. Ronaldo, at 41, is the competition’s oldest player as well as its oldest goalscorer. Yet neither is a happy man, each weighed down by conflicting burdens. Yama wants to become a future great; Ronaldo has an amazing past to match. A man wants to leap into the future; Another wants to time travel.
Lamine Yamal of Spain celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the World Cup Group H soccer match between Spain and Saudi Arabia, Sunday, June 21, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
They have met before in the Nations League final, where the old man prevailed. Ronaldo spoke sympathetically at the time: “He’s going to win many titles, both collective and individual… He’s only 17… I repeat: he’s a kid with a lot of room for improvement. He’s a phenomenon, but we have to leave him alone; that’s what I ask.”
Yamal is careful to avoid the shadows of both Ronaldo and Messi. “Ultimately, I think it’s better not to compare yourself to anyone. Players like Cristiano Ronaldo did what they did because they wanted to be themselves and not compare themselves to others. I want to make my own way,” he said.
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But for one evening in Dallas, Ronaldo’s shadow will fall on Yamal, not Messi.