In London, where football’s annual awards gathered the game’s leading names, Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal left the stage with another Kopa Trophy but with his thoughts also on a teammate back in Catalonia. The Spain international was named the world’s best young player for a third successive year, the first player to achieve that sequence in the award’s history.
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Yamal collected the prize after a prolific 2025/26 campaign for club and country, yet used his acceptance speech to make the case for Barcelona defender Pau Cubarsí.
“I would have liked Cubarsí, my teammate, to be here,” Yamal said. “This award should have gone to him. I wish he had won it. I want to thank my club and my national team. I have to keep working to win collective trophies and individual awards like this one.”
The 2025/26 season brought Yamal 25 goals and 20 assists across 57 appearances. He also finished the year with three trophies, including the 2026 World Cup with Spain.
Although he was not regarded as Spain’s standout performer throughout the tournament, Yamal was among Luis de la Fuente’s most threatening attacking players as La Roja lifted the global title.
The Kopa Trophy was the only award Yamal took home in London at that point, after arriving with ambitions of adding the Ballon d’Or to his growing collection. His latest individual honour, however, further underlined his place at the centre of Barcelona’s next generation alongside Cubarsí.
