1989 Chile World Cup Qualifier Scandal Spotlighted in ‘Simulacro' (EXCLUSIVE)
Chile's Villano Producciones and Storyboard Media are teaming with Viven Film (Switzerland) and Chilean actor-producer Benjamín Vicuña ('Locked Up,' 'Fuga') to sign a co-production agreement for the feature film 'Simulacro' during this year's Cannes market. Directed by Juan Ignacio Sabatini, the film is a political-sports thriller based on a real event that shocked the world of football.
Set in Brazil, 'Simulacro' dramatizes the 1989 scandal during a World Cup qualifier between Chile and Brazil, when Chilean goalkeeper Roberto Rojas staged an injury during the match at the Maracanã Stadium. The incident sparked global outrage and exposed deep-rooted issues within the sport.
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'The Condor Rojas case was a milestone in my life and in the life of an entire generation of a country and, why not say it, a scar on world football,' Vicuña tells Variety. 'Being able to make a movie and reveal what really happened, how that moment was built, what is true, what is myth, what is real, what the consequences were, I find it extremely compelling because it's a story that, anywhere in the world, a simulation like this one is simply unbelievable.'
The film centers on Chomsky, an obsessive radio journalist who investigates the incident, uncovering a network of corruption, political manipulation and media spectacle. Combining thriller elements with black humor, the story moves between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
'We envision a high-voltage film, full of action and touches of humor, at times bordering on a police thriller, featuring lovable and relatable characters, appealing not only to football fans but also to those who are fascinated by the madness that surrounds it,' says Sabatini.
''Simulacro' is a story so incredible it seems made up, but it happened. It's a story that exposes how great national narratives are constructed, engaging with our collective memory and the global spectacle,' explain Storyboard's Gabriela Sandoval and Carlos Nuñez. 'At the Marché du Film, we are looking for partners, especially Brazilian ones, who want to be part of this story that resonates with audiences around the world.'
Fellow co-producers Javier Krause and Sebastián Cepeda add, ''Simulacro' represents a unique opportunity for Viven Films: the starting point of our project development plan in co-production with Latin America. We are driven both by our Argentine roots and a deep desire to remain connected to our culture. Moreover, we are fortunate to be in an ideal moment, surrounded by strategic partners and accompanied by a director who knows exactly how to bring this fable to life.'
The producers are actively seeking Brazilian and additional Latin American partners, as a large portion of the film is set in Brazil.
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New York Times
36 minutes ago
- New York Times
Football's capacity to make men cry: ‘I was buying milk and just burst into tears thinking about Palace'
Forget the scoreline in the top corner of the screen. The image of the distraught Inter Milan supporter who flashed up on television screens around the world, as his team prepared to take a meaningless corner in the 76th minute, told the story of the Champions League final. Crestfallen and broken, his bottom lip was quivering and tears were streaming down his face. A fourth Paris Saint-Germain goal had not long been scored at the other end of the stadium and it was all too much for a man who looked like his world had come to an end. 'Imagine getting like that about football?' It's hard to explain to people who have no interest in the game why so many of us are so immersed and emotionally invested in this sport that it leads to the kind of behaviour — uncontrollable tears (of joy as well as despair), hugging total strangers, or even turning the air blue after something totally innocuous — that would be almost unthinkable in a public space anywhere else. Advertisement Football, essentially, is escapism; a place for us to forget about the trials and tribulations of everyday life and, for better or worse, completely lose ourselves. 'It's a cathartic experience,' Sally Baker, a senior therapist, says. 'Men are very rarely given permission to express their emotions. But within the context of football, they are — and no one's going to judge them. Everyone's in it together. 'They could swear — people use language at a football match that they never would use outside. It's a safe place and it's a unique environment for men to let off steam.' Those comments resonate on the back of something else that happened last Saturday night in Munich. With less than two minutes remaining, the television cameras showed PSG's assistant coach in tears in the technical area. His name is Rafel Pol Cabanellas and he lost his wife to a long-term illness in November last year. With or without a heartbreaking personal story, football's capacity to stir the emotions is extraordinary. Carrying our hopes and fears, the game plays with our feelings in a way that few things in life can and, at the same time, provides a form of sanctuary. The video features crying. A lot of crying. It lasts for one minute and 24 seconds and was filmed at Wembley Stadium on the day of the FA Cup final. The referee's whistle had just blown after 10 minutes of stoppage time and Crystal Palace, after 164 years of waiting, had beaten Manchester City 1-0 to finally win the first major trophy in their history. Joao Castelo-Branco, ESPN Brazil's correspondent in the UK, had decided to leave his seat in the press box moments earlier to try to get some footage of the Palace supporters. To describe what follows as scenes of celebration doesn't come close. It's so much more than that. It's raw. It's magical. It's moving. It's genuinely heart-warming. It's football — that simple game that means nothing and everything — touching the soul. Advertisement 'It just captured something special,' Castelo-Branco says, smiling. So special that you find yourself watching it over and again, looking at the faces of the people — men and women, young and old — and thinking about all the stories they could tell you about how their lives became so entwined with Crystal Palace Football Club, as well as wondering why this moment means so much personally to them. 'When I was there, I was feeling, 'This is incredible, and I was just trying to hold it together',' Castelo-Branco says. 'There was so much going on that you don't know where to film. And I think sometimes then you see fans turning the camera everywhere really quickly. But I tried to hold on a bit, to rest at that couple, but then at the same time move on a bit to show that there were all these different characters that were celebrating. Everywhere I turned was a beautiful shot of emotion.' 'That couple' feature at the start of the footage, when a woman overcome with emotion falls into the arms of a man who looks like he has been following Palace for more years than he cares to remember. His eyes are filled with tears. Behind them, another supporter of a similar age stands alone with his arms aloft, totally overwhelmed by the moment. Some fans have their hands over their mouths in disbelief, almost frozen. Others are wiping away tears with their scarves. One man is hunched over, face down and sobbing. Another supporter — his father, perhaps — wraps his arms around him and the two of them end up singing together. People of all ages are crying everywhere you look — crying and smiling. 'It's beautiful,' Castelo-Branco adds. 'And a really special thing about it is that not many fans were filming (on their phones). People were really living that moment.' True raw emotion, fans really living the moment. As I joined in the stands to film this video, there were hardly any fans with their phones out. Grown men and women hugging and crying. Amazing atmosphere. #CrystalPalace beautiful ⚽️#Wembley #FACup — Joao Castelo-Branco (@j_castelobranco) May 18, 2025 Following Palace's triumph at Wembley, there were similar scenes a few days later in Bilbao, where Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester United to win the Europa League. A couple of months earlier, it was Newcastle United's turn after they defeated Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final. But it doesn't have to be a long wait for a trophy that tips people over the edge at a football match. Gary Pickles remembers being in the away end at Brighton in 2019, when Manchester City were on the verge of winning their fourth Premier League title in eight seasons, holding up his phone, filming the fans all around him, and suddenly being stopped in his tracks. 'I noticed my son, Niall, had his hands on his head and tears were streaming down his face. We were winning the league. But he's really sobbing. I was like, 'What's up?' Whatever it was just triggered him. He was about 25 — it's not like a young kid doing it.' Pickles, who has been following Manchester City since the 1970s, makes an interesting point when we discuss whether his son's behaviour at Brighton is not as unusual as it would have been in the past. 'That video was just before Covid,' he says. 'But I think certainly since Covid, when there was a lot of talk about mental health issues, it's helped men to speak about that and maybe show their emotions.' Looking back provides a bit of context. In an article on the BBC website in 2004, under an image of the former England international Paul Gascoigne crying at the 1990 World Cup, a clinical psychologist talked about how 'a lot of men know more about how a car works than their own emotions'. Reading that quote again now, a couple of decades later, makes you realise how much life has changed – and in a relatively short space of time too (either that or all my mates are especially useless when it comes to knowing how to change a tyre). 'I think men have moved on hugely,' Baker, the senior therapist, says. 'I guess the old stereotype is that if men and sports were going to exhibit any emotions, it was normally anger. And there were apocryphal stories of women living in dread of their menfolk coming back if their team had lost. But men are more willing, and able, to express a fuller range of emotions than just anger. Advertisement 'I think they've changed a lot in the last 20 years. And I know that by the number of men I see. It used to be one man for every nine women I saw. And now it's much more like I'll see two men for every three women, so it's coming up to parity. There's a willingness to explore their own sense of self, what drives them and who they are.' That's not to say that men never cried at football in years gone by. When this topic of conversation came up in the office, my colleague Amy Lawrence told a story about being in the away end at Anfield in 1989, when Michael Thomas scored a dramatic late goal to clinch the league title for Arsenal against Liverpool on the final day, and how she was nowhere near her friends when she eventually came up for air amid the chaotic celebrations that followed. 'I found myself next to a guy who looked like your absolute classic 1980s football hooligan,' she said. 'He was massive. He was a skinhead. He was covered in tattoos. He looked terrifying. But he had tears rolling down his cheeks and he was blubbing like a baby. I can still see his face today. It was beautiful because he was the last type of person that you would ever expect to break down emotionally at a match.' The same can't be said for young Ricky Allman, who was only 11 years old when Leeds United were on their way to being relegated from the Premier League in 2004. With his shirt off and 'Leeds Til I Die' written across his chest, Allman was heartbroken as the television cameras homed in on him in the away end at Bolton Wanderers. Leeds were losing 4-1 and it was all too much for him. 'My bottom lip came out. A full-on, uncontrollable lip,' Allman told The Athletic in 2020. His mother, Beverley, was watching at home. 'She rang me in tears, 'Are you alright?' she said. You've been on telly. They panned on the crowd and you were crying — I haven't stopped crying since.'' Plenty of Palace fans were saying the same thing for a week or more after beating Manchester City. In Kevin Day's case, the initial sense of shock eventually gave way to tears in, of all places, his local supermarket. Advertisement 'For the first minute (after the final whistle) I couldn't speak,' the writer, comedian and lifelong Palace fan says. 'Then I looked around me and I was the only one not in tears. It was incredible. Mates of mine who I've known for so long, stoic people, who normally wouldn't cry… they were just broken. 'I've never felt elation like it. My son came round at 9am the next morning. He's 29. He threw himself into my arms like he hasn't done since he was a five-year-old. He was sobbing. 'And then, Monday morning, I was in the Co-op buying a pint of milk and I just suddenly burst into tears. I just thought to myself, 'The last time I was in here we hadn't won the FA Cup'.' Thinking about those who are no longer with us and unable to share a landmark moment can often trigger our emotions at football, as was almost certainly the case with the PSG coach Rafel Pol Cabanellas in Munich. It could be the memories of a grandparent who introduced someone to a club in the first place or, for Day, of his late father, who was always at the end of the phone to discuss the Palace match afterwards. 'Everyone I spoke to on that Saturday evening had someone they wished they could have called,' he says. 'There must have been about three million Palace fans looking down from heaven. 'On a serious note, though, I do wonder whether all the posters put up in pubs in south London over the last five years, about how it's alright to talk, have actually had a positive impact and that this generation of men do think it's alright to show their emotions. Maybe that message is finally getting through. 'Or maybe it's just any group of men where something happens that they've waited 120 years for, finally happens. I don't know. 'But I'm starting to get goosebumps thinking about it all again now.' (Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Manan Vatsyayana/AFP, Odd Andersen, Jacques Feeney/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
How fanzine culture gave a voice to supporters and changed English football
The titles were often gloriously creative and diverse, some paying homage to terrace anthems, others making a clever play on words. Sales were decent, too, with more than one million copies shifted per year at the height of what quickly became a phenomenon. We're talking about the rise of football fanzines in the 1980s. Those purveyors of insight and irreverence who arrived on the scene when the game was on its knees in a troubled decade and helped spark a revival. Advertisement Not just through fan activism, though there was plenty of that as fanzines joined the fight against compulsory ID cards, club mergers, and even proposals for a new European Super League featuring England's biggest names more than three decades before the more recent incarnation reared its ugly head in 2021. But, by giving supporters a long overdue voice at a time when they were considered pariahs by wider society, fanzines revealed those on the terraces to be intelligent, passionate people who had something to say beyond the cliched ''Ere We Go!' battle cry so beloved of the tabloid newspapers when generalising fans as hooligans. 'What fanzines did was offer an alternative voice that represented a much broader variety of perspectives on footballing culture,' says Kenn Taylor, part of the team behind Voice of the Fans, a new exhibition at Leeds Central Library exploring how fanzines helped change football. 'They critiqued clubs and critiqued aspects of footballing culture. But they also celebrated it and brought a really different kind of perspective. They allowed different groups of fans, some of whom experienced prejudice, to express themselves to show that they exist, too.' There had been earlier versions of fan magazines. Foul, a deliberate parody of magazines such as Shoot! and Goal, was produced by a group of Cambridge Students and ran for four years from 1972, while The End first landed on Merseyside in 1981 with an intoxicating mix of music, football and biting wit that ran for 20 issues and was edited by Peter Hooton, future lead singer of The Farm. But, really, the start of what would quickly become a truly national movement started with the arrival of club-oriented publications, such as Terrace Talk (York City), City Gent (Bradford City) and Fingerpost (West Bromwich Albion). Advertisement There was no single issue bonding together these early trailblazers other than a desire to offer an alternative view on clubs whose media coverage was largely restricted to the back page of the local newspaper and a rather staid, flimsy matchday programme. Soon, though, this early trickle of new titles had turned into a flood, with When Saturday Comes, surely the wise old grandfather of them all these days, first hitting the streets in 1986. Before long, every professional club in the UK had at least one publication chronicling their failings or otherwise and Sportspages, an independent book shop just off the Charing Cross Road in London piled high with fanzines from across the UK, became a tourist destination in itself as fans clamoured to buy the latest copy of Hit The Bar, The Gooner or Elm Park Disease. Visitors to Sportspages at the height of this publishing boom may also have enjoyed the artistic debut of future big names such as Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh and Libertines singer Pete Doherty, who wrote for Hibs Monthly (Hibernian) and All Quiet On The Western Avenue (Queens Park Rangers) respectively in their formative years. The Voice of the Fans exhibition claims that by 1992, more than 600 fanzines had appeared. Some proved short-lived, lasting just a few issues. But others, including hardy perennials United We Stand (Manchester United) and The Square Ball (Leeds United), are still going strong today in printed form despite so many of their peers having been swallowed up online. 'Heritage and tradition are perhaps the main reason there is still an appetite for the printed fanzine in our case,' says Mike Harrison, editor of City Gent, the longest-running fanzine in the country, which passed its 40th anniversary in October. 'Plus, as there is no longer a printed (matchday) programme produced by the club, City Gent is documenting what it is like to be a supporter of Bradford City from the fans' perspective.' Football and music have long been natural bedfellows, so it is perhaps not surprising that the roots of the fanzine movement that spawned such classics as There's Only One F in Fulham and Sing When We're Fishing lay in the record industry. In the late 1970s, punk briefly ruled the roost and the genre's DIY ethic struck a chord with fans who had grown tired of the music press and fancied having a go themselves. Advertisement Soon, Sniffin' Glue and Anarchy in the UK were required reading for gig-goers. In the main, these rough and ready fanzines — literally a blend of 'fan' and 'magazine' — looked to have been run off on the office photocopier when the boss wasn't looking. Crucially, though, they carried an authentic voice. Football followed suit just as the sport was hitting rock bottom. The Bradford City fire on May 11, 1985, which claimed 56 lives, came less than three weeks before another 39 supporters were killed at Heysel during a fatal charge by Liverpool fans before the European Cup final. Attendances had already slumped to less than 16.5 million across all four divisions of English football in the season that culminated in those two disasters. To put this 1984-85 figure into context, a combined 36.2 million people came through the turnstiles of the 92 Premier League and EFL clubs in 2023-24. Hooliganism, fuelled by often lurid coverage in the tabloids, helps partly explain why the public had become so turned off by a game that, in the years immediately after the Second World War, had regularly attracted a combined annual audience of 40 million fans. But there was also a lack of care from those in charge that allowed depressing episode after depressing episode to fester. These included a plan to merge Oxford United and Reading to form the Thames Valley Royals — as well as squeeze Fulham and Queen's Park Rangers into Fulham Park Rangers — around the same time Charlton Athletic abandoned The Valley. All three sagas had a happy ending eventually, thanks in no small part to the campaigning efforts of supporters. Into this mid-1980s maelstrom stepped the fanzines and a wonderful array of titles. Some drew on popular terrace chants such as Fortune's Always Hiding (West Ham United), Tired and Weary (Birmingham City) and the aforementioned Grimsby Town ditty about fishing. Then there were the clever puns, such as A Kick Up The R's (QPR), the Leyton Orientear and The Exe-Directory (Exeter City). Others required a tad more explanation, with War of the Monster Trucks a dig at Yorkshire Television from Sheffield Wednesday fans after the regional channel had cut short live coverage of their team's 1991 League Cup celebrations at Wembley to broadcast a repeat of a show first aired five years earlier. Advertisement Popular music also proved to be a breeding ground, with 4,000 Holes (Blackburn Rovers) paying homage to A Day in the Life by The Beatles, which features a line about how the Lancashire town's streets had 4,000 potholes requiring repair that John Lennon lifted straight from a newspaper report. Similarly, Gillingham's Brian Moore's Head Looks Uncannily Like The London Planetarium owed its rather left-field title to a Half Man Half Biscuit song about Moore, the ITV commentator and Gillingham director. 'One of the charms of football 'zines is they have that irreverence,' adds Taylor, lead culture producer (North) at the British Library. 'Really smart humour, full of wit. Everything from the headlines to the writing. 'It was a unique style at the time. This wasn't how things were conveyed, certainly before the advent of digital media.' Humour was, indeed, a big part of the fanzine movement from the start. This included poking fun at local rivals, such as when Bradford's City Gent produced a one-off booklet titled, 'Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Super Leeds'. All 100 pages were blank and it sold out within days, prompting a second print run to be ordered with the tagline, 'Painstakingly updated'. Around the same time, the front covers of When Saturday Comes — complete with photograph, headline and a provocative speech bubble — started to rival those of Private Eye, the satirical magazine that, for generations, had poked fun at royals, politicians and celebrities. Most were designed to amuse, but some WSC covers spoke better than a thousand words ever could, including arguably their finest effort in response to the Hillsborough disaster that saw 97 lives lost at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. As the blame game began in earnest over what had caused the biggest disaster in British football history, the June issue ran four photos under the headline, 'Hillsborough: Unanimous Verdict'. Advertisement 'It's not our fault,' read the speech bubbles accompanying the images of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Football Association chief executive Graham Kelly and Peter Wright, the chief constable of South Yorkshire Police. The final photo, featuring a massed bank of supporters, carried the message, 'Oh well, it must be our fault again.' As highlighted in the Voice of the Fans exhibition, When Saturday Comes also railed against plans for a domestic 'Super League' in their second issue, a full 35 years before similar arguments were made in opposition to a proposed European Super League that was eventually quashed by supporters able to mobilise through social media. Smartphones or message boards may not have been available when Charlton fanzine Voice of the Valley was first published in 1988. But that didn't stop it from helping to bring about real change. Having vacated The Valley in September 1985 due to being unable to afford the necessary safety work, the London club moved in, first, with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park and then West Ham at Upton Park. The team was successful on the pitch, even spending four years in the top flight alongside the likes of Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal after winning promotion in 1986, but supporters clamoured for a return to their spiritual home. Voice of the Valley, alongside the supporters club, helped turn that dream into reality by being at the forefront of a campaign that culminated in the Valley Party being formed to contest the 1990 local election after Greenwich Council had rejected the club's plans to rebuild their old stadium. Charlton's most important victory in decades came at the ballot box, as the Valley Party claimed 11 per cent of the votes cast with 14,838 — an unprecedented performance by a single-issue party. That the chair of the planning committee, who had rejected Charlton's application, lost his seat on a memorable night only added to the sense of achievement, and a little over two years later, football had returned to The Valley. Advertisement ''Zines were a hugely important medium,' says Taylor. 'They allowed fans to share opinions in a way that could connect right across a fanbase. Today, that fan voice is more important than ever. 'Multi-media has changed so much since the period when there were hundreds of printed publications coming out. But one of the things we try to capture in the exhibition is how print remains very much alive. 'We found at least 60 print football 'zines still being published. Regular ones, too, not just a one-off issue. That's got to be a big positive.' Voice of the Fans runs until August 10, 2025, at Leeds Central Library. Further details are available here. Admission is free.
New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
Lamine Yamal and the curious finish which shows why he is different
Lamine Yamal again. Adrien Rabiot again. Left-footed goals again. On a wild night in Stuttgart, where Spain and France played a game of basketball on a football pitch, the storyline had a familiar narrative running through it in more ways than one. It was 331 days ago when Yamal scored that goal against France in the European Championship semi-finals, his left foot sumptuously curling the ball into the top corner from 25 yards out, leaving Rabiot wishing that he had not only got across quicker to try to block the shot but that he had also chosen his words much more carefully the night before the game. Advertisement 'If you want to play at a Euro final, you need to do more than he has done up until now,' the France midfielder said about Yamal, who was 16 years old at the time. 'Move in silence, only speak when it's time to say checkmate,' Yamal replied on Instagram. Yamal posted again after scoring his wonder goal against France: 'Checkmate'. Eleven months later it was Rabiot who scythed down Yamal from behind for a penalty that the 17-year old calmly converted. What is it with teenagers constantly wanting to have the last word, eh? Except Yamal wasn't quite finished. His second goal against France, 13 minutes later, put Spain 4-1 up and made him the standout candidate for the player-of-the-match award. But it was a curious and highly unusual finish. Well, unusual for anyone else, but maybe not for Yamal. Some data first. In competitive games for club and country at senior level, Yamal has scored 31 goals and 29 of them have been with his left foot. His right foot isn't, to borrow that old cliche, just for standing on. But it's fair to say that he doesn't use it much, which is why Philipp Lahm said what he did when he told The Athletic in April how he would try to mark Yamal. 'He has to be on his weaker foot at all times. He cannot have any space,' Lahm, the former Germany international, said. One of Yamal's two weaker-foot goals came in Barcelona's 4-0 victory at the Bernabeu in October, after which he joked: 'Real Madrid's players didn't know that I have a right foot too! I had to use it when needed.' It looked like it would also be required against France in the UEFA Nations League semi-final on Thursday night, when Yamal broke into the penalty area in the second half after running onto a first-time pass from Pedro Porro. Holding off a challenge from the France centre-back Clement Lenglet — that wiry frame of Yamal's is deceptively strong — and with the angle against him, he somehow managed to slip the ball past the goalkeeper Mike Maignan. From a vantage point high up on the opposite side of the stadium — in other words, a long way from the goal — the first instinct was that Yamal had scored with his right foot, primarily because that was how it looked in the blink of an eye. Indeed, that was still the assumption when a slow motion replay started to be shown on the screen, partly because of the position of the ball but also the fact that the France centre-back Clement Lenglet was on the inside of Yamal rather than the outside. By going with his left foot, Yamal surely risked the shot being blocked. At least that was the theory. Yamal had other ideas and instead of taking the more conventional route and shooting with his right, he prodded the ball beyond Maignan with his left. It appeared as though the ball was almost pushed, which is why the soleplate of his boot is visible afterwards – Yamal has to work so hard to get enough purchase on the ball to send it past Maignan using this technique that his leg ends up horizontal after making contact. It looks strange when you watch it back but it was hugely effective and perhaps also goes some way to explaining why Maignan seemed to be caught slightly off guard and beaten in a way that you wouldn't expect him to be in that scenario. In fact, the France goalkeeper ended up diving after the ball was already past him, which suggests that Yamal had taken him by surprise with such an unorthodox and instinctive finish. It is also — and this is an area of his game where he is so different from his former Barcelona team-mate Ousmane Dembele, who genuinely has no idea which is his stronger foot — an example of how Yamal doesn't suffer at all from being so dependent on his left. Why? First things first, his left foot is obviously a thing of beauty, whether passing, shooting or dribbling. There was a moment late in the France game, which Spain won 5-4, when Yamal was performing pirouettes in the centre of the pitch, the ball glued to his left foot to such an extent that the opposition left-back Theo Hernandez decided to change sport. Cue a rugby tackle. Secondly, Yamal is able to improvise and use his left foot in so many different ways, including the 'trivela' – an outside-of-the-boot shot or pass that he executes brilliantly over a range of distances. Yamal is able to do that with such precision, that it doesn't just negate the need to use his right, but at times it's actually more efficient to play the ball with the outside of his left because it's naturally in his stride pattern. Inevitably at this point the mind wanders to other predominantly one-footed players, including everyone from Diego Maradona to Arjen Robben and Ricardo Quaresma. Ultimately, though, Yamal is one of a kind or, as the Inter Milan manager Simone Inzaghi recently put it, 'one of those talents that appear once every 50 years'. Advertisement Against France, on his 20th cap for Spain, Yamal upstaged Dembele, one of his rivals for the Ballon d'Or, and Kylian Mbappe and Desire Doue too. Next up for him is Cristiano Ronaldo, when Spain take on Portugal in the UEFA Nations League final in Munich on Sunday. Ronaldo, for context, was another six months away from playing his first international match at Yamal's age. (James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
