Lamine Yamal 'should be banned'! Ferran Torres' verdict on Spain & Barcelona team-mate as forward jokes he'll report teenager to police after Euro 2024

Yamal and Torres, who are club colleagues at Barcelona, are currently looking to lead their country to continental glory in Germany. Positive steps have been taken down that path, with La Roja the only side to make it into the last-16 with a 100 per cent record in the group stage.

Yamal, who continues to break records at his first senior tournament, has been catching the eye, with Torres telling The Guardian of his history-making team-mate: “He should be banned. What this kid is doing at 16 years of age!”

Torres added on the reports that Spain could be fined for fielding Yamal in any game that goes beyond 11pm local time, with German labour laws preventing those under the age of 18 from working at such times: “I’ll report him to the police after 14 July. Let him help us win it first. I didn’t know that; I’m going to go and tell him now, wind him up: there’s a joke to be played here. Off the pitch, we spend all day, all together: there aren’t groups. I play darts. I learned in Manchester with Phil Foden and all that lot. I’m not bad, but not as good as them: they’ve been playing years; in the pub with the beer.”

Spain are a happy camp at present, with Torres adding on collective desire to get over the line by any means possible: “I don’t watch a lot of football normally but at the Euros I am because they are opponents we could face. We watched Georgia against Portugal. We beat Georgia 7-1 and 3-1 in qualification but those results are a bit false and things change now. The group is finished. We can expect anything. And we’re going to take it game by game. If we get to the 90th minute against Georgia and we’ve won then OK. Now you just have to win, any way you can. God willing on 15 July everyone everywhere says we played like shit and won it.”

Georgia will be faced in the last-16 on Sunday, with that contest taking place in Cologne. Spain previously claimed the European Championship crown in 2008 and 2012 – either side of a World Cup triumph – and believe they have the talent at their disposal to secure continental dominance once again.