Barcelona superstar Lamine Yamal on playing in Euros and Olympics for Spain: “It wouldn’t make sense”
Barcelona’s teenage superstar Lamine Yamal is already a full Spanish international and proves to have a key role for the national team this summer as La Roja will play in EURO 2024 in Germany, but Spain will also take part in the Olympic Games in Paris and there is already a ton of concern regarding Yamal’s potential participation in both.
Barça fans are having terrible flashbacks to 2021, when Pedri finished an amazing debut season with Barça and immediately went on to play in the Euros and the Olympics, going to extra-time in several matches and having zero vacation time, and that workload has infamously taken its toll on Pedri’s body in the three years that followed.
The Catalans also lost Gavi to a season-ending knee injury in a meaningless friendly last November and do not want another injury headache with Yamal, and the club have already reportedly told the Spanish Federation that Barça players can only be called up for one of the two tournaments.
And when asked about his international commitments in the summer in an interview this week, Lamine was pretty clear about his feelings as well.
“It wouldn’t be logical to go to both because from the beginning it has been about not overloading me and not playing too much, so it wouldn’t make sense to go to both. Obviously if I have to go, at the end of the day I’d be playing with Spain and that’s a dream. [But if I had to choose], the Euros would be more important.”
Source: Mundo Deportivo
So it seems pretty clear from Barça and Yamal’s side that Lamine should not be called up to the Olympics. We’ll see if the Federations will listen for once.
