Lamine Yamal would now be rushing through the last few days of the school year, probably thinking about whether his subject choices were the right ones and if they would guarantee him a good future in the world of work. He would be strolling the streets of his neighbourhood with his friends and killing time in the summer with kickabouts with his mates, playing video games and going on the occasional outing, the usual 16-year-old stuff. But Lamine Yamal is in Germany and is playing in a European Championships, this meteoric rise that places the Catalan in the history not only of football, but also of sports in a wider sense. He turns 17 on 13 July and no one has ever played in this tournament at that age. Lamine is unique for having risen so high while so young.

Even so, and taking into account his exceptional nature as a special kind of footballer, he still has to fulfil his obligations as a 4th year secondary school student. "I go to class and every day I get different homework. Sometimes they give me more to do at home, but I do it every day," he says as he finishes some English class work. "If they see that we are in the quarter-finals or last 16, they don't give me a lot of work, but on rest days, when he knows I'm not doing anything, he does tell me to do some bits and pieces," he says about his teacher.

Between solving maths equations and learning the correct use of pronouns in English, Lamine is thinking about the ball, the epicentre of his day-to-day life, and about this European Championships, which he has got to before most of his tender age. "As a child, you always dream of playing in competitions like the European Championships, the World Cup And everything at national team level. I'm very happy to be able to keep on adding records like this one and to see if I can beat the youngest goalscorer record", he comments, having already decided on who to dedicate the goal to in the case he scores. "As always, to my family and my friends, who have always helped me, and hopefully I can get the record against Italy.

Under normal circumstances, this year he would have played in the U-17s European Championships or, at a push, the U-19s, but he is with the senior team, which is a massive statement. "It's not normal to be 16 years old and playing these kinds of games. It's like a dream and you mustn’t think about it too much so it doesn't go to your head, you have to think about football and nothing else," he says with a certain naturalness. "Above all, you have to think that you can improve every day, that you're never at your peak, and think about football and follow the people I've always gone with.

Here he shares a dressing room with people who have won everything and they all look after Lamine Yamal, who soon takes some advice from Álvaro Morata as he settles into doing some exercises with Jesús Navas, in the autumn of his career at 38 years old. When mentioning the Andalusian player, he says "we talk about a bit of everything. Before we were talking about the bike, about how he has one at home. There are always anecdotes to tell, experiences that they have that in the end I don't have, because of my age. That helps you a lot". Those conversations over the distance the squad has travelled, all involved in giving Lamine the words he needs to know where he is. Having a "player sharing a dressing room with you who, at the end of the day, has won a World Cup and a European Championships is something incredible. He tells me to enjoy it, that everything is coming, that we are a family and a close-knit group".

But, of course, he spends his free time with the younger members of the group made up of an interesting mix in a dressing room that seems so close. "I try to always be with the young guys, playing Playstation or ping-pong... If not, I watch a series or the European Championships in my room, which goes very well with the match schedules because at the end you're watching a game, or playing Playstation or on the iPad".