Lamine Yamal has responded to the controversial words of Mariano Rajoy about the French national team with a defense of football as a tool for integration. "If football is good for anything, it is for integrating society, and France and Spain are a good example," stated the Spanish national team player.
🔴🇫🇷 Lamine Yamal, sobre la columna de Rajoy en donde decía que la selección francesa jugaba "sin franceses": "El fútbol si sirve para algo es para integrar. No hay mejor ejemplo de integración que Francia y España"
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The forward made these statements during the official press conference held this Monday in the press room of the Dallas stadium, where Spain and France will play the semifinal of the 2026 World Cup this Tuesday. Yamal asked to appear before the media on his birthday and assured that, facing one of the most important matches of the tournament, "there is no room" for this type of debate.
The response comes after Rajoy wrote in a column published on July 10 in El Debate that France has "a squad of the highest level. That said, without French people," referring to the family origin of a large part of its footballers. Only three of the 26 French call-ups were born outside of France.
The former president's words provoked criticism from the Spanish and French governments and the French Football Federation. The PP avoided disavowing Rajoy and attributed the phrase to a sarcastic expression uttered "without bad intentions."