If you can say that about a sixteen-year-old, Lamine Yamal grew up in Rocafonda.

The winger for Barcelona has come a long way since his first game with the first team against Real Betis on April 29, 2014, when he was fifteen years, nine months, and sixteen days old.

That night, he became the team’s youngest player since the start of La Liga more than 90 years ago. Earlier this month, on October 8, he scored the youngest goal in the history of the tournament in a 2-2 draw with Granada. He was also the youngest player in history to score a goal.

Everyone who has seen him play knows that he will handle the attention well this weekend in El Clasico. Real Madrid will see him as one of their most dangerous opponents. Naturally, his skill level has been compared to Lionel Messi’s when people have talked about how to help him grow at Barcelona and other places.

They have always known that he is different in Rocafonda and has a strong bond with the place. “Family and emotional core,” as one of the locals puts it.

Mataro is a town 40 minutes up the coast from Barcelona with about 120,000 people. Rocafonda is a neighborhood in that town. Geographically, it’s in a great spot, but the neighborhood isn’t very fancy and is surrounded by expensive towns.

The Mediterranean Sea shines a beautiful blue color on a Sunday afternoon when seen from the hills above it. People are still walking around in short sleeves, even though it’s October—a warmer outfit for August than for fall.

People from the area are gathered around the public sports field to watch Rocafonda’s Juvenil A (under-17) team play. When there aren’t any stands, fans often walk up to the bars next to the field and rest their arms on them. This is a typical scene in Spanish regional football.

Yamal never played a game at this ground. As a young player, he played football on a nearby concrete court, where kids who can’t afford to join nearby teams often do. The word “Rocafonda” is spray-painted on top of it, and it is one of the main hubs of the neighborhood.

There is more writing, but it only has the number 304 written on it. It’s on trash cans and walls all over the place. It refers to the 08304 postal code. As Yamal celebrated scoring his first goal for Barcelona, he pointed to the code, which is a way to show who you are and that you belong.

Across the street, at a small bakery run by Abdul, one of Yamal’s uncles and 23 of his cousins, you can find more proof of his ties to this place. A mural of Yamal wearing a Barcelona shirt greets you as you walk in. It shows the colors of Equatorial Guinea, where Yamal’s mother is from, Morocco, and Spain, where he was born.

There are bags of chips, soft drinks, and freshly baked pastries all around Abdul and his son as they wait for the crowd to come. Since Yamal’s first game with Barcelona’s first team, the bakery has become even busier than its prime position allows. A lot of kids who are hungry from football will be rushing here soon to buy their favorite food.

Grandma Fatima of Yamal shows up. Although she is small and sweet, she is always grateful to anyone who shows interest in her child. She was the first person to move her family from Morocco to Spain 35 years ago. She got there first by herself, and then her kids came. Abdul has lived in Rocafonda for thirty years.

She shared her grandson’s childhood with him, just like Abdul did with his own children. They have grown up together. And when Yamal was three, his parents got a divorce. For a short time, he lived with his mother Sheila in La Torreta, a neighborhood in Roca del Valles near the city of Granollers, which is north of Mataro.

Innocente Diez, one of the important people in Yamal’s life journey, was introduced to him by his mother at her new job at a fast food place.

Diez used to play football in his hometown and was known as “Kubala” (after the Barcelona star Laszlo Kubala). He told Yamine’s mother, Sheila, that she should sign her son up for La Torreta, the club where he was the supervisor.

The Athletic quotes Diez as saying, “You could tell he was special.” You never know what will happen at that age because the business is so big. But it looked like someone touched him with a magic stick.

“After he moved back to Mataro, he would call me a lot to beg me to pick him up in the car because his dad couldn’t go to training with him.” On the way there, we always talked, and I told him that Barcelona would sign him in the end. He always said “No, no, no.”

It was clear that he was shy and quiet. He was nice and sweet. He still comes to see me every once in a while and listens to the advice I give him. He is still close with his old friends and prides himself on being humble. He doesn’t like showing off.Just like they did with other kids, La Torreta helped Yamal and his family with money so they could play.

At games, scouts from nearby lower-league teams like Damm or UE Cornella, whose goal is to develop young players, were often seen. But Yamal’s case was different. He went straight to Barcelona.

The story goes that one day, a man saw Yamal from the stands and called Barcelona to tell them they should give the guy a chance. It only took him one, and he started working with them in 2014, when he was seven years old.Even though Rocafonda played in La Torreta and went to school in Granollers, he stayed in Yamal. He made a home there with his cousins and other friends. Even after he moved to live at Barcelona’s youth school, which is west of the city, they stayed together.

When he first joined Barcelona, the team would pick him up and a few other kids on the way to training during the week. On the weekends, he lived in La Torreta with his mother. In her car, she would take him to Barcelona games. A young coach named Jordi Font would often pick him up very early in the morning when he was with his dad, who didn’t have a car.Font, who coached Barcelona’s under-10 team in 2016–17, says, “He usually slept on the trips.” Font taught Yamal how to fight. That age of kids finds the sound of cars moving to be relaxing. This was especially true when we had to travel. He didn’t talk to anyone but his friends. But he never really talked to anyone.The Rocafonda neighborhood was mostly made by new construction in the 1970s. People from Spain and people who had moved there for work lived in a normal working-class neighborhood.

Over time, that group of people has changed. Over time, the first families left Rocafonda, and because many of the apartment buildings didn’t have elevators, the older people also went. When it was first built, the area looked like a modern urban development in a city with a very old historical neighborhood. However, some of the buildings were not built properly and have not been restored. Some homes still don’t have heat.

Some changes to the city’s planning could have made this area one of the best in the city, says Maria Majo, a member of the Rocafonda Neighbourhood Association and a former teacher.

“There are many chances to do things here, but also many things that you can’t do.”

Many abandoned homes have been taken over by squatters recently, and there have been rumors of violence between rival gangs in different areas. This has given Rocafonda a bad image in the wider region. Residents say that the area is generally safe and has a lot of families, even though fights do happen from time to time.

“The people are very good,” Majo says, “but family and economic situations are sometimes very hard.” During her 41 years of work, she saw personally how many people from the neighborhood who didn’t have perfect family situations went on to go to college.

She thinks that Yamal has been an inspiration to many kids since he made his Barcelona debut because they have seen how hard work and persistence have helped him build a successful future for himself.

Yamal’s life has been crazy the last few months. Compared to Messi, he has gone from being a teenager no one knew about to a worldwide star.

It’s the youngest player in Barcelona history to score 100 runs, the youngest player in La Liga history, the youngest player to start a Champions League match, the youngest player to play for Spain, and the youngest player to score for Spain.

Xavi now counts on him as a player. He doesn’t look out of place; the Spanish Football Federation quickly gave him his first international start. He has made Barcelona fans forget about Ousmane Dembele. He turned sixteen (16) years old in July, which was his birthday.

His family and many people who have closely watched Yamal’s amazing rise say that his unique connection to the neighborhood where he grew up played a big part in this. Even though everything has changed for him, his uncle, grandma Fatima, and cousins are still here. His father often walks the streets of Rocafonda, even though he doesn’t live there anymore. He often goes to El Cordobes, a local bar where there is a big picture of another Yamal Barca shirt.

Many people who say they know the football player talk about how humble he is and how little he has changed, despite everything. People in charge know that he still remembers the twisting streets of Rocafonda, the smell of the sea, and the three numbers that make up his name: zero, four, and three.