Yamal’s YouTube List Named Spain’s World Cup Knockout Heroes

Two of the players Lamine Yamal called underrated on YouTube in June scored the knockout goals that sent Spain to a World Cup title. Spain beat Argentina 1-0 after extra time on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. The same clip had promised a beard, a moustache, and a raffle of 100 Beats headphones if the trophy arrived.

The tape looked like teenage fluff. Forty-two days later it read like a team sheet.

A Living-Room List Became a Knockout Sheet

Yamal posted the video on June 7 under the title 19 preguntas antes del Mundial, the fourth film on his own channel. It has since passed more than 16 million views. He answered fan questions while his mother, a dentist, and a barber drifted in and out of frame. Near the end came the line the clip is now famous for, after a cameraman tried to push the pledge to a full year.

I promise that if I win the World Cup, I’ll grow a full beard and moustache for… A whole year?! Three weeks. I promise that if I win the World Cup, I’ll raffle 100 Beats.

Lamine Yamal, on his YouTube channel

The caption still teases the draw: ¿Habrá sorteo de 100 Beats? He already fronts the brand. In December 2024 he had handed more than 100 pairs to kids at La Masia, so the World Cup version was a public repeat of a private habit. The heavier part of the tape sat one question earlier, when he handed the microphone to his mother and asked her to name an underrated player.

He had to define the word for her first. Underrated, he said, means they are better than they seem. Then he offered a Barcelona teammate. “Gerard Martín is underrated.” Ferran Torres landed in the same exchange. Yamal kept going.

Fabián Ruiz, from PSG. Underrated. Merino. From Arsenal. Also. I’m a big fan of Merino.

Lamine Yamal, with his mother, YouTube Q&A

Someone floated Cole Palmer. Yamal shut it down. Palmer wears Chelsea’s No. 10 and had just finished in the Ballon d’Or mix. That, to him, was not underrated. He wanted the ones who do the work without the noise. Spain then went and won a World Cup with exactly that group punching the knockout holes.

Why Yamal Wraps His Right Hand

The other clip that travelled from the same afternoon was the bandage. Fans had watched him play for months with white tape on the right palm and two fingers bound together. The guess was a hidden injury. The origin was a PlayStation.

“I bandage it because, playing PlayStation, I punched the TV and hurt my fingers. And they swelled up a lot,” he said. “From then on I started bandaging it. And I thought the bandage looked really good on me. Like Karim Benzema. And I remember that we did the KB9, KB9 joke. I just kept it. And it looks good on me, I think. So I just keep it.”

The wrap has been part of his match kit since about February 2025, long after the swelling went down. Benzema’s version had a medical start. Yamal’s became a look, then a running joke with whoever was in the room that day, then a habit he refused to drop for a World Cup. He also said his braces would come off after the tournament, that his English is “high” for understanding and clumsy for explaining, and that he is not the person behind the ryansbuss19 account on X. That handle, he said, is his TikTok name, copied onto a platform he does not use.

Merino Scored Twice From the Bench

Luis de la Fuente’s Spain opened with a 0-0 against Cape Verde, then put four past Saudi Arabia and edged Uruguay 1-0. The knockout rounds were thinner, and they were won by the midfielders Yamal had just described as underrated.

Against Portugal in the round of 16, Mikel Merino came on in the 85th minute and scored in the 91st. In the quarter-final against Belgium on July 10 in Los Angeles, Fabián Ruiz put Spain in front in the 30th minute, Charles De Ketelaere levelled in the 41st, and Merino arrived in the 86th minute and scored in the 88th. FIFA later wrote him up as the supersub completing a circle that started with extra-time against Germany at Euro 2024, the same two late winners against Portugal and Belgium that put Spain in a first World Cup semi-final in 16 years.

SPAIN’S KNOCKOUTS AGAINST THE JUNE LIST

Fabián Ruiz’s opening goal in Los Angeles was the first punch of that quarter-final. Merino’s second punch ended it. Ruiz had lost his starting place after the opening games and took it back against Belgium. Merino had spent the first four months of 2026 on the sidelines at Arsenal with a foot injury, from January 25 to May 24, then kept walking into World Cup matches for the last five minutes and scoring. In 2025 he had already put eight goals in a Spain shirt, six of them in qualifying. Yamal calling himself a big fan of Merino was not a throwaway. It was a player’s eye on a finisher who does not live in the highlight package.

Ferran Torres, named in the same underrated riff, finished the job in extra time of the final. The 106th-minute strike at MetLife Stadium, in front of 80,663, was Spain’s 14th goal of the tournament and the only one Argentina could not wipe out. Slavko Vinčić refereed. Spain had played eight matches, won seven, drawn one, and conceded once.

The Club Teammate Who Missed the Plane

Gerard Martín is the name on that list that never made the tournament. De la Fuente took eight Barcelona players to North America and left the converted defender at home. Martín had just finished a league season in which Hansi Flick moved him from left back into centre back, a position he had not played before. After the last league game Flick said Martín had everything he needed for the role, and that his attitude and mentality were incredible. Martín, then 24, said he had competed at the level Barcelona demands and hoped the call would come. It did not.

That is the part of the YouTube list that was club loyalty rather than a national-team forecast. Yamal was backing a teammate the country still had not bought. Spain won without him. The point of the clip was never that Yamal can pick a World Cup squad. It was that the most famous 18-year-old in the team spends his praise on the unfamous ones, including the one who stayed in Catalonia.

Yamal’s Quiet Tournament Still Ended in Gold

He was 18 years and 343 days old when he scored in the 10th minute against Saudi Arabia, the eighth-youngest scorer in World Cup history, and that remained his only World Cup goal. He had arrived on the back of a hamstring that cut his minutes, managed as an 80 or 90 percent player through the groups, and used as a starter once De la Fuente trusted the leg. He won the penalty Mikel Oyarzabal converted in the 2-0 semi-final against France. In the final he forced work from Emiliano Martínez and did not get the goal. Ferran did.

FROM THE Q&A TO THE TROPHY

1. June 7, 2026: Posts the 19-question YouTube tape and names Martín, Ruiz, and Merino as underrated.
2. June 21, 2026: Scores in the 10th minute of a 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia, his first World Cup goal.
3. July 10, 2026: Watches Ruiz and Merino score the 2-1 quarter-final win over Belgium.
4. July 14, 2026: Wins the penalty in a 2-0 semi-final over France. That night Opta listed five unbeaten Spain players at major tournaments, Yamal among them on 14 appearances without a defeat.
5. July 19, 2026: Starts the final as Spain beat Argentina 1-0 after extra time for a second World Cup, 16 years after 2010.

By the night of the final he had started 13 games at major tournaments and won all 13. He had not lost in 28 competitive matches for Spain. He was 19 years and 6 days old, the youngest player to have won both the World Cup and the Euros. The Golden Ball went to Rodri. Pau Cubarsí, another Barcelona teenager, took young player of the tournament. Knockout football, from Portugal through Belgium, had run through the midfielders Yamal had named in a living room in June, not through the winger on the poster.

The Beard Arrived, the Beats Raffle Did Not

The promises were the easy half of the clip to recap before kickoff. After the final they split.

WHAT HE OWED AFTER JULY 19

• The beard: He grew it. A mid-August TikTok showed the new hair with a gold World Cup pendant, and he called the three weeks without a shave an aesthetic sacrifice.
• The AFE gala: On September 2 he collected the award for best player of 2025-26 still wearing the beard and moustache.
• The 100 Beats: The YouTube caption still asks whether there will be a raffle. No public draw has been announced since the final.
• The braces: He said they would be off after the World Cup. The orthodontist on the tape refused to rush the work just to make him happy.

He also learned, he said on that June tape, to stay calmer after a bad first game, because a tournament is long and you still have six matches left. Spain’s first game in 2026 was another blank, against Cape Verde, and the rest of the month proved the line. The names he read out with his mother did the proving in the rounds that decide trophies. Martín never got the minutes. Ruiz and Merino got the goals. Torres got the last one. Yamal got the beard, the medal, and a caption that is still waiting on 100 pairs of headphones.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Karim Benzema start wrapping his hand?

Benzema fractured the little finger of his right hand against Real Betis in January 2019 and was told surgery would cost about two months. He declined, taped the hand, and kept playing. The wrap became his match look for years, which is the KB9 joke Yamal was copying after a PlayStation accident rather than a break.

Did Gerard Martín play at the 2026 World Cup?

No. De la Fuente named eight Barcelona players and left Martín out after Flick had just moved him from left back to centre back. Martín said after Barcelona’s last league game that he had felt comfortable in a position he had not played before and that he hoped to be on the plane.

How old was Lamine Yamal when Spain lifted the trophy?

He was 19 years and 6 days old on July 19, having turned 19 on July 13 during the knockout rounds. That made him the youngest player to win both the World Cup and the European Championship.

What English does Yamal actually use on the pitch?

He told the camera he understands everything and struggles to explain. The phrases he listed were “ref, yellow card, offside,” “I have pain here,” and “deep run,” the last of which he said the manager taught him. He called the rest very basic.

Is Lamine Yamal behind the ryansbuss19 account on X?

No. He said ryansbuss19 is his TikTok name, that he does not have an X account, and that someone copied the TikTok handle onto X and posts nonsense. He looks at X only rarely, and not when he knows the timeline is about him.