UC Press Blog

By Khaled A. Beydoun, author of The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims

Lamine Yamal is one of the most world’s recognizable names and faces. The eighteen-year-old Spanish footballer, who helped Barcelona FC claim its 29^th La Liga title after defeating rival Real Madrid, is already one of the sport’s top players. With icons Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo nearing the end of their careers, Yamal is poised to succeed the pair as the next global face of football.   

The passing of this torch will likely take place this June, in North America, the site of the 2026 World Cup.  Spain, one of the favorites to win the tournament, will feature Yamal as its talisman, setting the stage for the Muslim star-boy to become football’s leading man. A status that is far bigger than sport, and as illustrated by Messi, Ronaldo, Maradona, Pele and the select few who rose to the beautiful game’s highest tier, creates opportunity to impact the world beyond football. 

Until that moment comes this summer, another took place this week that was just as seismic. During Barcelona’s victory parade that circled around the city, Lamal celebrated alongside his teammates before crowds of supporters that collected around the buses. A Palestinian flag emerged from the crowd, riding high atop a wooden pole held by an invisible hand in the crowd. The presence of the flag was no surprise, this was Spain after all, which has become the popular and political center of the pro-Palestinian movement in Europe under the leadership of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.  Even more, this was Barcelona, the capital of Catalan and its local culture of resistance, which roots a more intimate affinity for the Palestinian struggle and the human tragedy in Gaza. 

The flag moved closer, then closer to the bus and Yamal. The Palestinian flag no longer stood at the margins of the panorama viewed by billions around the world, but swayed alongside FC Barcelona logos and the recognizable faces of the footballers celebrating atop the bus. Particularly Yamal, a product of Barcelona’s working-class Rocafonda neighborhood, where pro-Palestinian graffiti is as ubiquitous as the working-class immigrants who call it home.

While young, Yamal was familiar with what the flag represented, and the perils it posed on and especially off the pitch.  

Yamal moved toward the flag, and the ultimatum it presented. He could turn away from it, like Messi and Ronaldo, fearing the political responsibility and brand risk that came with it. Or he could heed the request and raise it up, assuming the responsibilities and risks as he stands stood atop the championship bus and on the brink of becoming the face of football.   

In fact, waving the Palestinian flag could even undermine Yamal’s natural progression of becoming the athletic and economic face of football, even if his sublime talents merit that status. 

Yamal met a definitive crossroads a month before the World Cup would kick off his sporting ascendency, manifested by a flag that would map his public profile moving forward. If he took hold of it, the teen would become the talk of prime ministers and politicians, an accosted people in Gaza and far right officials in Israel. 

The decision, bigger than the world’s most beloved game, would begin to mark Yamal’s political positionality among the Mount Rushmore of football’s signature faces. Would he follow the footsteps of Messi or Maradona?  Veer wholly from politics like the former in order to maximize his corporate bankability, or submerge himself wholly into it like the latter Argentine – who famously embraced Palestine during his final football act by stating, “I support Palestine without any fear.” 

While the political turns of Maradona, Messi, and the Portuguese Ronaldo provide telling vignettes, another act hits closer to home. That of Zinedine Zidane, who like Yamal, hails from North African ancestry and holds Muslim identity. Unlike the others, the Palestinian struggle is more intimate to the Zidane and Yamal, and part of the cultural, political and familial tapestries that reared them. Yamal’s father, who is of Moroccan origin, compares his son’s play to the Algerian-French legend, while Zidane stated that the young Spaniard “gives him chills” whenever he touches the ball.

The football world was Yamal’s for the taking, and the rapidly approaching decision only his for the making. The Palestinian struggle cost footballers’ endorsements, millions of dollars, and in some instances, closed doors on careers. Zidane knew this well, not only dodging the Palestine while sitting atop the sport, but also veering from the rife racial and religious currents in France that unfolded in the very belly of the Marseille banlieue that made him. Zidane traded in his political voice for mainstream acceptance and commercial bankability, at a crossroads when he won the World Cup and his face was emblazoned across the Arc d’ Triumph while Arab, Amazigh and Muslim communities in France faced lived at the margins of French society. 

By tuning out his political voice, many claimed that Zidane turned his back on his past and the people that did not make it out of the La Casetellane projects and the constellation of French ghettos that resemble it. Zidane honed his sublime football ability on the very streets where he learned to fight, but as his star rose, found greener pastures by leaving politics alone and never looking back.  

Yamal and Zidane share far more than otherworldly playmaking skills on the pitch, but similar ancestries and origin stories. Despite his branded “304” hand gesture that symbolizes pride for his Rocafonda roots, the political road traveled by Messi, Ronaldo and especially Zidane would pave the way for endless commercial opportunity and mainstream acceptance, peaks especially rare for Muslim footballers. 

The shadows of these football giants and the weight of his decision fell on Yamal’s shoulders as he sat atop that bus, interlocked between a flag and a future it would help define.  He did not shy away from the flag, but against the grain of modern greats and the “good Muslim” blueprint left by Zidane, requested and reached for the Palestinian flag. 

Yamal took hold of it. With both hands.

Grabbing the flag from anonymous hands, then lifted it up high to crown the victory parade and the next face of football. The image went viral, instantly, and Yamal evolved into something far greater than the next football icon. Accepting the Palestinian flag was as much an expression of personal recognition as it was political defiance: Yamal embraced who he truly is, the place he comes from and the people he cannot leave behind during that victory lap in Barcelona. 

The act marked a moment of a boy announcing himself as a man of his own making. With converging wars and instability, the 2026 World Cup could be the stage for his finest acts yet.