Lamine Yamal’s rise with FC Barcelona and Spain has put his parents back in the spotlight, because his family background explains why he was eligible for either Spain or Morocco. His mother is Sheila Ebana, originally from Bata, Equatorial Guinea, and his father is Mounir Nasraoui, who is from Larache, Morocco.
That choice mattered because Yamal did not just become a star at age 16; he helped Spain win the European Championships in 2024, scored in the semifinal against France, set up the opening goal in the final and finished the tournament as the youngest goalscorer in Euros history while also winning the Young Player Award. Two years later, he reached his first World Cup and scored Spain’s opening goal against Saudi Arabia, becoming only the second player aged 18 or younger to score the opening goal in a World Cup match since Pelé in 1958.
The family story behind that career runs through Catalonia and Morocco. Sheila Ebana moved to Catalonia and worked in hospitality as a waitress, while Yamal grew up in Rocafonda, a working-class neighborhood in Mataró, roughly 20 miles northeast of Barcelona. After Sheila Ebana and Mounir Nasraoui separated when he was around three years old, she moved to Granollers with her son and his father remained in Mataró. Yamal said he alternated between Granollers and Mataró to spend time with each parent, and he described a routine in which his mother came home late from work and still made him dinner at night.
Yamal’s account also fills in the missing piece many readers are searching for: how the family got here in the first place. He said his grandmother was the first to arrive, sneaking onto a bus from Morocco to Mataró, then working three shifts so his father could come after staying in Morocco. He said she later paid a woman to bring his father and his sister, who came when they were three. That background helps explain why he was tied to both Spain and Morocco, and why his decision to represent Spain rather than Morocco stirred controversy and, in accounts from Rocafonda cited in a MARCA documentary, led to insults directed at his father. Yamal has since bought his mother a home in Esplugues de Llobregat and also homes for his paternal grandmother and father, a final detail that makes plain where this story stands now: the family behind one of Spain’s biggest young players is no longer hidden in the margins, and the choice that defined his international career is still part of the price they have all paid.
