Lamine Yamal Ready for World Cup Opener as Spain Aims for Glory

Spain will walk into their World Cup opener with their brightest young star available and their ambition laid bare.

Lamine Yamal, the Barcelona prodigy who scared a nation when his hamstring gave way in April, has been declared in “perfect condition” to face Cape Verde on Monday. Luis de la Fuente did not hesitate with the update. He knows what that sentence does to the mood around La Roja.

The 2025-26 season ended without Yamal in a Barcelona shirt. His spring turned into a race against time, rehab sessions replacing matches, the World Cup looming larger with every scan. Now, at the point where it truly matters, Spain’s head coach says the plan has worked.

“The good news is that Lamine is in perfect condition,” De la Fuente told reporters on the eve of the match. “He's arrived at this point in the state in which we wanted him to be. He's fine, just like Nico [Williams] and Victor [Munoz]. They're all available, although some won't play the entire game.”

There is a caveat, and it is a sensible one. Yamal will not be thrown straight into 90 minutes of high-intensity tournament football.

“The doctors say Lamine can play tomorrow without any issues. Not to play 90 minutes, but to play some minutes, yes. The process [with Williams] is similar,” De la Fuente explained.

So Spain’s two electric wingers, Yamal and Nico Williams, are both on the menu. How much they play will depend on the rhythm of the night and the demands of the game, not on sentiment. De la Fuente stressed how closely the pair have worked together in recent weeks, a detail that hints at combinations and patterns already rehearsed.

“They've been working together a lot of days, a lot of hours, and with the relationship they have, they've been happy. They could play, if we think the game demands it.”

Spain arrive at this tournament with the weight of expectation and the shadow of recent underachievement sitting side by side. Opta’s supercomputer makes them favourites to win the World Cup. The numbers like them. The history, more complicated.

Their only triumph came in 2010, a golden month that still defines an era. Since then, the World Cup has been a graveyard of frustrated campaigns: a group-stage collapse as defending champions in 2014, then back-to-back last-16 exits, both on penalties, both leaving the sense of a team stuck in the same cruel loop.

Strip it back further and the picture sharpens. In their last 14 World Cup appearances, Spain have reached the semi-finals just once – that 2010 run. More recently, they have won only one of their last six matches at the tournament (four draws, one defeat), that solitary victory a 7-0 demolition of Costa Rica in the 2022 group stage. When the stakes rose, the wins dried up.

This is the backdrop to De la Fuente’s squad: reigning European champions after their triumph in Germany two years ago, now chasing a place in an elite club. Only three nations have ever held the European Championship and World Cup titles at the same time. Spain want to become the fourth. The margin for error, and for injuries to key players, is slim.

Amid the tactical questions and fitness updates, transfer noise still found its way into the pre-match briefing. Reports in Spain have placed Marc Cucurella on the brink of a move from Chelsea to Real Madrid, a storyline that would normally dominate a week in isolation. De la Fuente, though, kept his response tight and focused on the national-team lens.

“If it's good news for Cucu, or someone else, we'll celebrate it,” he said. “I don't talk about clubs, but if you ask me about Cucurella for the national team, he's convincing.

“He's been with us since he was 17. I know his performance, the quality and potential he has. He might be one of the best left-backs in the world, without doubt.”

That last line landed with emphasis. In a squad loaded with technical midfielders and emerging forwards, De la Fuente clearly sees Cucurella as a pillar, not a distraction, regardless of where he plays his club football next season.

Spain open against Cape Verde with the numbers on their side, the bookmakers nodding, and a generation of talent ready to step into the gap left by the legends of a decade ago. They do so with Yamal fit, Williams available, and a manager unafraid to talk up the quality of his players.

The question now is simple and brutal: can this version of La Roja turn promise and probability into something that actually lifts a trophy?