Ahead of Spain’s decisive match at the 2026 World Cup, an old video of Lamine Yamal went viral again and sparked an intense debate among fans.
The footage dates back to December 2022, when Spain was eliminated by Morocco at the Qatar World Cup. At the time, Lamine was just 15 years old and had not yet made his debut for Spain’s senior national team.
In the clip, he can be seen celebrating Morocco’s qualification, even wearing the African country’s jersey and kissing its crest alongside other people. The video resurfaced on social media, and many began to question how someone who is now one of Spain’s biggest stars could have celebrated the elimination of the team he would end up representing years later.
However, other users pointed out a key detail: Lamine Yamal has a Moroccan father and an Equatorial Guinean mother, so he has always maintained a strong family connection to Morocco. At that time, he had not yet begun his career with Spain’s senior national team and was still a teenager.
As the years went by, the winger chose to represent Spain, the country where he was born and developed as a footballer, becoming one of the national team’s biggest stars and one of FC Barcelona’s biggest stars. Even so, the video keeps resurfacing every time he plays important matches with La Roja.
While some consider celebrating Morocco to have been completely normal because of his family roots, others believe the footage is striking considering the role he now occupies as one of the leading figures in Spanish football.
Here is the moment: