Álvaro Morata has shared dressing rooms with some of the game’s biggest names. Yet when he looks at the race for the 2026 Ballon d’Or, his gaze keeps returning to one teenager.
The Madrid-born forward, now starting a new chapter in the Segunda División with Leganés, did not hesitate when asked by Cadena COPE about the leading contenders for world football’s most coveted individual prize. For him, Spain’s next superstar is already here – and already deserves to stand alongside the giants.
He put Lamine Yamal in the same breath as Rodri, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Kylian Mbappé. No caveats. No talk of “potential”. Just a straight comparison with the elite.
Morata’s reasoning cuts through the usual hype that surrounds any prodigy. He insists the wider public still underestimates what truly sets Yamal apart: the work nobody sees.
“He is much smarter and far more hard-working than many people think, in terms of how he studies matches and how he prepares for them,” Morata said, lifting the curtain on a 19-year-old whose reputation has so far rested largely on his dazzling left foot and fearless dribbling. Behind that, Morata suggests, is a player obsessed with detail, living like a veteran while still a teenager.
For Morata, the evidence arrived early and emphatically. He remembers watching Yamal step onto the European stage as a 16-year-old and bend games to his will.
“He was dominating Europe at 16 years of age, and what I have seen with my own eyes is truly incredible,” the former Spain captain recalled. Coming from a striker who has led the line for Real Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea and Atlético Madrid, it lands as something more than polite praise.
Their shared story in the national team began with a statement win. Since Spain’s emphatic victory in Georgia in September 2023, the pair have played together 15 times for La Roja. That night in Tbilisi, Yamal scored on his international debut; Morata walked away with a hat-trick. One veteran captain, one fearless debutant – a snapshot of a changing of the guard.
The years since have only accelerated that shift.
Yamal, a La Masia graduate steeped in Barcelona’s traditions, already owns a trophy cabinet that would satisfy most players at retirement. His haul stands at eight major titles, highlighted by a domestic treble with Barça in the 2024-25 campaign. He has not just ridden the wave; he has helped create it.
On the international stage, his impact has been even more seismic. Spain’s triumphs at Euro 2024 and the Nations League were followed by the ultimate prize: World Cup glory in 2026. Yamal emerged from that cycle not only as a symbol of Spain’s rebirth, but as the youngest footballer in history to lift both of the game’s most prestigious international honours.
Those medals matter now. Ballon d’Or voters have long weighed club brilliance against international legacy, and Yamal already ticks both columns with an authority rare for his age.
All of which explains why his name on the 30-man shortlist for the 2026 Ballon d’Or feels less like a surprise and more like confirmation. His inclusion underlines what Morata and those inside the Spain and Barcelona camps already believe: this is not a distant prospect, but a live contender for the Golden Ball.
The stage for the verdict is set. On October 26, London will host the ceremony that crowns the next Ballon d’Or winner, a glittering night where reputations are sealed and eras are often defined. Somewhere in that room, a teenager from Barcelona will wait to hear if his meteoric rise has already carried him to the sport’s highest individual honour.
Until then, Yamal’s task is brutally simple: keep delivering. Keep carrying Barcelona in domestic and European competition, keep justifying the faith of veterans like Morata who have seen up close how unusual this talent truly is.
The debate over the 2026 Ballon d’Or will rage until the envelope opens in London. The more pressing question now is different: at 19, with a World Cup, a European Championship, a Nations League title and a club treble already behind him, how much higher can Lamine Yamal still climb?
