The 16-year-old star leads Spain’s new generation against the Georgia team he beat on his debut 10 months ago

The first time Lamine Yamal joined the Spain squad, they left his boots behind. His and everyone else’s too. When the selección touched down in Tbilisi to face Georgia in September 2023, the trunk carrying part of their kit was still sitting at Barajas, forcing them to complete the evening session at the Boris Paichadze stadium in trainers, unable to strike the ball. The following night, they scored seven. On his debut, the Barcelona winger got the last of them, aged 16 years and 57 days, and the national team got a new beginning.

Ten months on, Spain face Georgia again, this time for place in the quarter-final of Euro 2024. They are, Lamine Yamal says, the best side here but, he adds, “nothing we have done in the group phase will mean anything if we get knocked out”.

The Spain forward on defying the critics at Euro 2024, his super-sub role and what he thinks of his teenage teammate

This is getting serious. Well, sometimes. Ferran Torres is sitting at the home ground of tiny SV Aasen 1928 laughing about how Lamine Yamal should be illegal, playing darts with Phil Foden and being David Villa when he is asked about the man about to stand before him and his Spain teammates. “If the last one had to go in off the post, the next one’s going to need three lots of curl on it to beat ‘Mama’,” he says. “You have to visualise it, believe it. You need a clear chance too; we were watching him last night and he’s amazing.”

Mama is Giorgi Mamardashvili, the 6ft 6in Georgia goalkeeper who has made more saves than anyone. Torres’s goal, bent past Albania’s Thomas Strakosha, completed a perfect group stage for the selección, nine points from nine and no goals conceded, although it was also the only one they’ve scored themselves since half-time in their opening game, and the margins are getting finer. “We’ve been the best team in the group phase, and that gives us confidence,” he says. “But things change now. We gave Italy a going over? In the semi-final last time we gave them a going over and we still went home then, a thorn in our side still. You can play well or badly, but now you have to win.”