Sid Lowe for The Guardian:

“The way Lamine Yamal tells it, Spain knew they were world champions before they had scored, in the moment Enzo Fernández was sent off. It was the third minute of second-half stoppage time, still 0-0, but now, he says: “We knew it was impossible they would score, and with the ball against 10, very difficult for us not to.” The surprise was that they hadn’t already, but on 106 minutes the ball came to his feet. He had been thinking about this moment for some time.

The battle with the one, two, three players facing you is “very psychological”, Lamine Yamal says. “A full-back will have a coach who says: ‘OK, Lamine: what he does is …’ I think of him as a robot, trying to stop me. Robots can be almost perfect but a human will have something a robot doesn’t. Football is mechanised but there are players like me, Pedri, many others, who have that special spark. There’s a typical Neymar move when he stops, fakes, goes the other way: I watched so many videos of him. I try to play with opponents, ensure they can’t mechanise me, don’t know where I’m going.”

“I remember three plays in minutes 60, 70, 80 or thereabouts, when I took on the full-back. Every time, [Alexis] Mac Allister came over. If I had really wanted to go at the full-back, I would have gone at him fast; instead this time I went slower, carrying the ball, so that Mac Allister had time to get to me, Pedro [Porro] could arrive behind me and I could play it back.” A little space made, from Porro’s cross Nico Williams headed back and Ferran Torres, who had struggled throughout the tournament, scored the goal.

“We knew Ferran needed it,” Lamine Yamal says, then laughs: “Well, everyone needs a goal in a World Cup final. If Unai Simón had scored, great. When it goes in, it’s spectacular, you feel you’re champions. You can’t explain the emotion. All I wanted was to keep playing. I never thought: ‘They might equalise’. There was a small push, a chance [Pau] Cubarsí cleared, but I was enjoying it.”

I can’t imagine the power Lamine must feel knowing he is able to think differnetly than everyone on the pitch because they are allowed and able to produce that spark. Many players aren’t allowed in today’s game.