{"id":527,"date":"2025-06-06T16:22:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/?p=527"},"modified":"2025-06-06T16:22:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:22:41","slug":"yamal-primed-to-prove-himself-against-legend-ronaldo-in-nations-league-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/06\/yamal-primed-to-prove-himself-against-legend-ronaldo-in-nations-league-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Yamal primed to ‘prove’ himself against ‘legend’ Ronaldo in Nations League final"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Spain starlet Lamine Yamal said Sunday’s Nations League final against Portugal would give him the chance to “prove who I am” after helping his side past France in the semis on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yamal scored twice and was named man of the match in a 5-4 win over the French in Stuttgart on Thursday, sealing progress to this weekend’s Nations League final against their Iberian rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A late French flourish obscured Spain’s dominance, with La Roja cruising at 5-1 before dropping their intensity, allowing France to score three late goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they did on their way to winning Euro 2024 in Germany last season, Spain’s success was built on the foundation of wingers Yamal and Nico Williams. Williams, who got a goal of his own and set up another, was man of the match in the 2-1 Euro 2024 final win over England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday’s victory puts 2021 Nations League winners against Portugal, who won the competition in 2019. “It’s a special game, a final against a great team gives us extra motivation,” Yamal told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is the kind of game I want to play, to prove who I am.” Still just 17, Yamal will face off against Portugal veteran Cristiano Ronaldo, who is 23 years his senior. “He’s a football legend,” Yamal said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I, like all the players, have huge respect for Cristiano. I will do my job, which is to try to win, and that’s it,” he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spain starlet Lamine Yamal said Sunday’s Nations League final against Portugal would give him the chance to “prove<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}