The Lamine Yamal affair exposes the dark side of modern football

Lamine Yamal is having to play a lot of games this season.

Conflicts between clubs and national teams are nothing new. However, the Lamine Yamal affair has taken that tension to a new level. Never before has a club coach – Barcelona’s Hansi Flick – publicly told national team coach Luis de la Fuente that he “doesn’t care about the health of his players”. An accusation that goes beyond all bounds and should never have been exposed to the public.

De la Fuente may be to blame for not resting Yamal against Türkiye, but he has his reasons: the youngster has just played three consecutive games for his club without anyone at Camp Nou complaining.

The situation became tragic when Barcelona, after remaining silent on the Spanish Football Federation’s (RFEF) request for a medical examination, agreed to release the player – only to announce five hours later that Yamal had been injured and would be out for three weeks. The drama was not just about an injury, but also about the rotten relationship between the club and the Federation.

This kind of tension is simply the inevitable consequence of a global football system that operates on a single formula: the more you play, the more you earn. The Champions League now requires 17 games to win; FIFA has created a new Club World Cup - a "gold mine" for big teams; the European Super Cup is squeezed into January, the Intercontinental Cup still exists, and the Copa del Rey is the lifeblood of national federations.

Lamine Yamal causes a split between the Spanish Football Federation and Barcelona.

The RFEF, like many other federations, survives on international television rights – meaning the national team has to play as many games as possible. This year, without the Euros or the World Cup, Spain will still have 10 games to play. Last year, with the Euros, that number increased to 17. Not only is it a gruelling schedule for the players, but it also shows that football is slowly losing its biological limits.

Today’s footballers no longer “wear the national team jersey” as a rare honor, but almost a permanent obligation. Iribar once held the record of 49 appearances for Spain in 12 years – a milestone that stood until 2008. Yet after only 5 seasons, Unai Simon surpassed him with 52 appearances. Not because he was greater, but because modern football creates too many meaningless matches.

Qualifying for major tournaments is now almost a formality for the “big guys”. Euro 1992 had only 8 teams; Euro 2024 has 24. The 1994 World Cup had 24 teams, while 2026 will have 48. To get there, Spain only need to overcome opponents like Türkiye (FIFA 27), Georgia (68) or Bulgaria (86). Long flights, poor pitches and uncompetitive matches only give club managers more reason to protect their players – and turn against the national team.

Yamal is just the latest victim of that system. At 18, he is torn between national duty and club pressure – two machines that want to squeeze out young talent for their own benefit. And when things fall apart, each side tries to blame the other.

Modern football is eating itself up with greed: more tournaments, more money, but less emotion. What was once a symbol of national pride – the national team jersey – is now just another slot in the busy schedules of exhausted players.

If the balance between sporting and commercial interests is not found soon, today's "Yamal case" will only be the beginning of a series of other collisions - when players, the people who really make football, become victims of the very game they love.

Source: https://znews.vn/vu-lamine-yamal-phoi-bay-mat-toi-cua-bong-da-hien-dai-post1590602.html