“Eh, eh, this one played with Lamine,” shouts a kid who looks every bit a kid – mullet, vaper, bermuda shorts below the knee, and Yeezy sneakers – upon seeing a journalist who looks every bit a journalist (I suppose). “And me,” repeats a friend, and another joins in, all with stories impossible to verify, in the little field at Anselm Turmeda square in Rocafonda, where now there is a graffiti of Lamine Yamal and the memory of some great goal he scored there as a child. They all witnessed the impossible.
“Lamine is ours, he’s from here, from Mataró, from the neighborhood,” finally assumes Buba Camara, established as spokesperson. “He grew up here and is Spanish. Lamine is Spanish,” he proclaims hurriedly, asked about the controversy before the Spain and France semifinals that, here, in Parc Central de Mataró, next to Rocafonda, while almost 5,000 people follow the match, loses its meaning.
If they are here, it’s to cheer for Spain, no matter where their parents came from. “We already came two years ago to the Euro final and it brought us luck. It’s a great place, everyone is cheering,” adds Bernat Muñoz, a Rocafonda resident, who after finishing ESO did a project on Lamine and ended up meeting him. “Now it’s hard to see him around the neighborhood because he’s super protected and the street would fill up if he appeared, but I know he has come to visit his grandmother, or his uncle’s house,” he says shortly before his former neighbor causes the penalty for Mikel Oyarzabal‘s goal.
The family bar
Until the semifinals, without giant screens in the city, one of the longtime meeting spots for Yamal’s neighbors was the LY 304 bar, run by Abdul, the footballer’s uncle, but this week it is closed. “There is no one here. They are all there, in the United States, to watch the matches. The whole family, even the grandmother, Fátima. Until the World Cup ends,” points out Amel, a close friend of the player’s family, in front of the place, who repeats the kids’ memory. She also recounts a legendary goal by the boy Lamine Yamal in the square.
At halftime of the semifinals, precisely in that little field football never stops: some teenagers set up a small game before returning to their phones. At halftime of the semifinals, in that little field there is a claim. “During the day you can’t play here, there isn’t even a shadow,” complains one of the players.
“Look, we’ve been asking the City Council for a cover for years and nothing,” denounces Marc Jiménez, president of the Rocafonda Neighborhood Association. “The neighborhood was created in the 60s for those who arrived from other parts of Spain to live. Narrow streets, small apartments; it wasn’t even expected that these workers would have cars. Since then there have been many shortcomings, and that hasn’t changed in recent years.”
Rocafonda is proud of Lamine – the Spanish national team shirts with number 19 (the white one, of course) or the Barcelona one with number 10 are repeated – but it remains “the abandoned neighborhood” as always, according to Jiménez.
Tension in the neighborhood
In fact, the Association is these days collecting signatures to demand more presence of the Local Police and garbage service from the City Council, in order to avoid confrontations between neighbors due to “night noise, cleaning problems, and acts of vandalism such as burning containers.”
“In the neighborhood there are several spots where young people from here and other parts of the city gather, and a malaise is being created, a breeding ground for the far right to enter. With its inaction, the PSOE [which governs the city] is leaving the door open to Vox and Aliança Catalana,” analyzes Jiménez, who points out that the World Cup is not the problem – “it’s once every four years” – although the late matches are not helping calm summer nights.
About 11,500 inhabitants live in Rocafonda, and around 35% have foreign nationality, although if you count Spaniards born abroad or children of migrants, the foreign-origin population far exceeds half. The Moroccan community is the majority, ahead of the Senegalese or Gambian, and that’s why Morocco’s matches have been intensely followed. “Morocco has been followed a lot, but Lamine is Lamine. Until a few days ago there was some division between Morocco and Spain in the streets, but most people have a special feeling towards him,” assures Muñoz, although in that “most” there is also a reality.
“The Moroccan neighbors are divided. Many have bought the Spain shirt because of him, with 19 on the back, but others don’t like that he doesn’t play for Morocco,” concludes Jiménez before the final whistle of the match and before the celebration breaks out, which will last for hours.
