Pau Cubarsí and Lamine Yamal: Spain's Emerging Stars
Luis de la Fuente insisted last summer that Pau Cubarsí’s absence from Euro 2024 had nothing to do with age. He said he simply had four centre-backs he rated higher at that precise moment.
That moment has passed.
Right now, at this World Cup, there are very few defenders operating at Cubarsí’s level. Anywhere.
Spain’s wall, built from the front
Spain have glided into the quarter-finals in North America without conceding a goal, a collective achievement built on work without the ball as much as with it. Mikel Oyarzabal harries centre-backs like a man chasing a lost wallet, Rodri screens the defence with his usual icy authority, and the back five have moved in near-perfect sync.
Marc Cucurella is already justifying the €60 million Real Madrid have wired to Chelsea, snapping into duels and surging forward like a man who knows his price tag. Unai Simón has rewarded De la Fuente’s faith with five straight clean sheets, keeping David Raya and Joan García watching from the bench. Aymeric Laporte, at 32, looks as smooth and assured as at any point in his career. Pedro Porro, so often erratic for Tottenham, has been unrecognisable in a Spain shirt: disciplined, aggressive, reliable.
But Cubarsí is the one who makes you sit up and stare.
A teenager who plays like he’s seen it all
Nothing about this stage seems to rattle him. It shouldn’t, perhaps. He has been a Barcelona regular since 17, anointed by Xavi as an “era-defining player” in the same breath as Lamine Yamal. Carles Puyol went further, projecting him as Barça’s first-choice centre-back for the next 15 years.
Those words can weigh heavy. Cubarsí shrugs them off. He has said he feels no pressure on the pitch, and you believe him when you watch him. Calm on the ball. Crisp in the tackle. Always in the right place.
Even so, what he is doing at a World Cup at 19 is outrageous.
Defensively, he has barely put a boot wrong. The understanding with Laporte looks like it has been built over seasons, not weeks. De la Fuente has highlighted that partnership himself, leaning on Laporte’s nous to guide the teenager through the tournament’s tightest moments.
“At crucial moments, a player like Laporte brings that experience Cuba needs alongside him, and they complement each other fantastically,” the Spain coach said. “We’ve achieved a phenomenal balance in the centre of defence.”
The balance is real. Laporte reads danger, dominates the air, organises. Cubarsí cleans up, steps in, and then does something else that changes the way Spain play.
A centre-back who doubles as a playmaker
With Cubarsí, Spain don’t just have a defender; they have another director of traffic. A La Masia graduate honed in the art of building from the back, he treats the first line of possession as his stage.
Only Rodri has played more passes than Cubarsí at this World Cup so far. That is not a quirk of one game or a padded stat line in a dead rubber. It is the spine of Spain’s game plan. He takes the ball under pressure, breaks lines, dictates tempo. He is one of just four players in De la Fuente’s squad to have played every single minute of the campaign.
For a coach who left him at home for the last major tournament, De la Fuente now treats him like someone he cannot do without.
Yamal searching for his spark
At the other end of the pitch, the spotlight has stayed fixed on Lamine Yamal, but for different reasons. His World Cup has been stop-start, the rhythm broken long before Spain landed in North America.
The hamstring injury that wrecked the end of his 2025-26 season with Barcelona also threatened his place at this tournament. He missed both of Spain’s warm-up games and managed only a 19-minute run-out in that jarring 0-0 draw with Cape Verde.
Then came the reminder of who he is. Yamal started the 4-0 demolition of Saudi Arabia in Atlanta, scored the opener and transformed Spain’s attack. With him on the pitch, La Roja looked faster, sharper, more unpredictable.
Since then, the spark has flickered rather than burned. His dribbling lit up the round-of-32 hammering of Austria, a match that made Spain the first side since Brazil in 1958 to start two teenagers in a World Cup knockout game. But against Portugal, the old duel with Nuno Mendes resurfaced, and once again the full-back largely smothered him in a tight 1-0 win.
So the most feared winger in world football heads into Friday’s quarter-final with Belgium still waiting for his first assist of the tournament. Just five chances created. Not nearly enough by his own brutal standards.
He knows it.
“I’m very demanding of myself,” he told Mundo Deportivo. “I’m never satisfied with what I’m doing. Besides that, I just need to keep playing. I was out for almost two months, and it’s not the same as when you’ve already played seven games in a row.
“Keep touching the ball, keep playing, keep adding minutes and, obviously, that [big] match will come. In the end, people remember these moments, from the round of 16 and the quarter-finals onwards. That’s when I’m most motivated.
“I’ve taken this whole process calmly so I can arrive at this point in good shape. I feel great, eager to show what we are as Spain and what I am.
“I’ve never been the best player in the group stage. The closer the important matches get, the semi-finals or the final, the better I play.”
Those are not the words of a teenager spooked by expectation. They sound like a warning.
Two era-defining pillars?
The idea of Yamal clicking into top gear now, in the knockout rounds, is alarming enough for Belgium. Add in the thought that Spain might already have found an “era-defining” player at the back as well, and the picture becomes even more daunting for the rest of the field.
Yamal rose to the occasion at Euro 2024 when the pressure peaked and the margins shrank. Spain rode his talent all the way to the trophy.
Now De la Fuente arrives at another World Cup quarter-final with the same precocious winger waiting to explode, and a 19-year-old centre-back quietly running games from his own penalty area.
If this is how Spain’s new generation handles the early chapters, what will they look like when the stakes are at their highest again in the days to come?
