Lamine Yamal Backs Neymar for 2026 World Cup
Lamine Yamal grew up with Neymar on his screen. Now, on the eve of Barcelona’s biggest European test of the season, he wants his idol back on the biggest stage of all.
The 16-year-old has thrown his support behind the Brazilian forward, insisting he still belongs at the 2026 World Cup despite being left out of Carlo Ancelotti’s latest Brazil squad.
Neymar, now back at Santos and 34 years old, is no longer the automatic pick he once was for the Seleção. Yamal doesn’t care. For him, the No.10 remains the player who made football feel magical.
“He’s my idol and I’ll always be grateful to him for everything he’s given to soccer,” Yamal said in a press conference, speaking with the certainty of someone who has already chosen his legends. “He inspires everyone. He’s the type of player that you’ll pay a ticket to watch him play, the type of player you’ll watch a game again three days later just to see his moves. Hopefully he will be at the World Cup.”
For Yamal, this isn’t just nostalgia. It’s fuel.
A teenager chasing a Neymar-sized miracle
Barcelona trail Atletico 2-0 in their Champions League quarter-final, a scoreline that leaves them clinging to hope rather than expectation. When a club like Barça needs a miracle, it tends to reach for its own mythology.
Yamal has gone straight to the most outrageous chapter: the 6-1 against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.
That night, Neymar didn’t just play. He took over. A free-kick, a penalty, a sublime assist. A 4-0 first-leg deficit turned into one of the greatest comebacks the competition has ever seen.
“I’ve watched the 6-1 match several times, and I watched it live as well,” Yamal admitted. “Neymar is a player who was very important for me during my childhood.”
For many of his generation, that remontada is a YouTube clip. For Yamal, it’s a blueprint. A reminder that 2-0 down is not a sentence, just a problem that needs a star to bend the game to his will.
He knows exactly who showed him that first.
From Neymar to LeBron: a gallery of giants
The winger isn’t just drawing on football memories. He has started to build his own little hall of inspiration.
Recently, Yamal changed his Instagram profile picture to LeBron James celebrating the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 2016 NBA championship — the year they came back from 3-1 down in the Finals to stun the Golden State Warriors.
Different sport, same story: a seemingly doomed team, a superstar refusing to accept the script.
“He’s one of the figures who can inspire me for this match,” Yamal said. “I’ll think about how he did it and hopefully it works out the same for me.”
The choice of images says plenty. Neymar in 2017. LeBron in 2016. Yamal isn’t looking for routine wins or safe paths. He’s looking at players who changed history when the odds were stacked high and the clock was ticking.
Now it’s his turn to walk into a game that demands something extraordinary.
Idol on the horizon, spotlight on the present
Neymar’s future with Brazil remains uncertain. Ancelotti has looked elsewhere in his latest squad, and time is not slowing down. Yet from a teenager in Barcelona comes a clear message: the story isn’t finished.
Yamal wants to see his idol in the 2026 World Cup, wants to see that familiar No.10 lighting up another tournament. At the same time, he’s stepping into nights where others might one day replay his own clips, the way he replays Neymar’s.
First, though, comes Atletico, a 2-0 hole, and a boy who grew up watching impossible comebacks now trying to write one.
