60 Minutes - 06/14/2026: Here Come the Humanoids, The Empty Rooms, Lamine Yamal

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

For decades, engineers have been trying to create robots that look and move like humans, and now breakthroughs in AI are giving humanoid robots a new ability to acquire skills through learning. At Hyundai’s new auto plant near Savannah, Georgia, correspondent Bill Whitaker watches as Boston Dynamics’ humanoid, AI-powered robot Atlas learns to perform factory work in a real-world setting for the first time. Marc Lieberman is the producer.    For eight years, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp have documented the rooms of children killed in school shootings across the United States. Their bedrooms – virtually untouched as the children left them on the day they were killed – have become memorials to young lives cut short. Correspondent Anderson Cooper visits these spaces and speaks with the parents about their significance. Katie Brennan is the producer.    Barcelona’s 18-year-old soccer phenom Lamine Yamal has captivated fans with his improvisation and flair. Already, he is considered a generational talent and an heir to the great Lionel Messi. Correspondent Jon Wertheim meets Lamine Yamal in his home country of Spain to talk about his rapid ascent as the World Cup kicks off in North America. Draggan Mihailovich and Nathalie Sommer are the producers.   

At Hyundai's sprawling auto plant, more than 1,000 robots work alongside almost 1,500 humans. This may look like the factory of the future, but we found the future of the future in the parts warehouse, getting ready for work. Meet Atlas, a 5'9, 200-pound AI-powered humanoid. I just can't believe what my eyes are seeing. Steve Hartman, a veteran CBS News correspondent and Lou Boe, a photographer, have spent the last eight years asking parents whose children were killed in school shootings for permission to take pictures of the empty rooms they left behind. Rooms that have become sanctuaries, a tangible link to a child they can feel but no longer hold.

All these physical things are tangible ways of reminding me. Like, she was real, she was here, she lived with us. 18-year-old Spanish soccer sensation, La Minia Mall, is not yet licensed to drive, not yet liberated from wearing braces, but already the world, like the ball he dribbles, is at his feet. One thing we keep hearing is, this kid's got it. Right. What is it? How do you describe moonlight?

How do you describe candlelight? How do you count the bubbles in a glass of champagne? I don't know. I just know when I say it, it's pretty beautiful. I'm Leslie Starr. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Al Thonsty. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Scott Pelly. Those stories tonight. On 60 Minutes. For decades, engineers have been trying to create robots that look and act human. Now, rapid advances

in artificial intelligence are taking humanoids from the lab to the factory floor. As fears grow that AI will displace workers, a global race is underway to devise. human-like robots able to do human jobs. Competitors include Tesla, startups backed by Amazon and Invidia, and state-supported Chinese companies. Boston Dynamics is a front-runner. The Massachusetts company valued at more than a billion dollars

is hard at work on a humanoid it calls Atlas. South Korean carmaker Hyundai holds a 90% stake in the robot maker. As we first told you in January, we were invited to see the first real-world test of Atlas at Hyundai's new factory near Savannah, Georgia. There, we got a glimpse of a humanoid future that's coming faster than you might think. Hyundai's sprawling auto plant is about as cutting edge as it gets.

More than 1,000 robots work alongside almost 1,500 humans, hoisting, stamping, and welding in robotic unison. This may look like the factory of the future, but we found the future of the future in the parts warehouse, tucked away in the back corner, getting ready for work. Meet Atlas, a 5-9-200-pound AI-powered humanoid created by Boston Dynamics. The rise of the robots is science fiction no more. I have to say, every time I see it, you just can't believe what my eyes are seeing.

Is this the first time Atlas has been out of the lab? This is the first time Atlas has been out of the lab doing real work. Zach Jekowski heads Atlas development. He has two mechanical engineering degrees from MIT and a mission to turn the robot into a productive worker on the factory floor. We watched as Atlas practiced sorting roof racks for the assembly line without human help. So he's working autonomously.

Correct. You're down here to see how Atlas works in the field, and you'll be showing Atlas off to your bosses at Humday? Yeah. Do you feel like a proud Papa? I feel like a nervous engineer. Chikowsky has been preparing for this moment for a year. We first met him and Atlas a month earlier at Boston Dynamics headquarters just outside

the city, where he and his team were teaching Atlas skills needed to work at Hyundai. And Atlas, with its AI brain, was gaining knowledge through experience. In other words, it seemed to be learning. You know how crazy that sounds? Yeah, a little bit. And I think a lot of our robotists would have thought that was pretty crazy five, six years ago. When 60 Minutes last visited Boston Dynamics in 2021, Atlas was a bulky hydraulic robot that could run and jump.

Back then, Atlas relied on algorithms written by engineers. When we dropped in again this past fall, we saw a new generation Atlas with a sleek all-electric body and an AI brain powered by NVIDIA's advanced microchips, making Atlas smart enough to pull off hard-to-believe feats autonomously. we saw Atlas skip and run with ease. Do you ever stop thinking, gee whiz? I remain extremely excited about where we are in the history of robotics, but we see that there's so much more that we can do as well.

Scott Kinderzma was head of robotics research, a job he proudly wore on his sleeve. Do we even have on a robot shirt? Well, once I saw that this shirt existed, there was no way I wasn't buying it. He told us robots today have learned to master moves that until recently were considered a step too far for a machine. And a lot of this has to do with how we're going about programming these robots now, where it's more about teaching and demonstrations and machine learning than manual programming.

So this humanoid, this mechanical human, can actually learn. Yes. And we found that that's actually one of the most effective way to program robots like that. Atlas learns in different ways. In supervised learning, machine learning scientist Kevin Bergman, wearing a virtual reality headset, takes direct control of the humanoid, guiding its hands and arms, move by move through each task until Atlas gets it. And if that teleoperator can perform the task that we want the robot to do

and do it multiple times, And that generates data that we can use to train the robot's AI models to then later do that task autonomously. Kindersma used me to demonstrate another way Atlas learns. That very stylish suit that you're wearing is actually going to capture all of your body motion to train Atlas to try to mimic exactly your motions. And so you're about to become a 200-pound metal robot. The calibration process is now complete. He asked me to pick an exercise.

They captured the way I work as well. I am here at the AI lab at Boston Dynamics. All of my movements, my walking, my arm gestures are being picked up by these sensors. Then engineers put my data into their machine learning process. Atlas's body is different from mine, so they had to teach it to match my movements virtually. More than 4,000 digital atlases trained for six hours in simulation. And they're all trying to do jumping jacks just like you. And as you can see, they're just starting to learn, so they're not very good at it.

The simulation, he told us, added challenges for the avatars, like slippery floors, inclines, or stiff joints, and then homed in on what works best. And it can eventually get to a state where we have many copies of Atlas doing really good jumping jacks. They uploaded this new skill into the AI system that controls every Atlas robot. Once one is trained, they're all trained. So that's what you look like when you're exercising. And what I look like doing my job. I am here at the AI lab at Boston Dynamics.

All of my movements, my walking, my arm gestures are being picked up by these sensors. This is mind-blowing. Through the same processes, Atlas was taught to crawl, do cartwheels. It didn't fare as well with the duck walk. Oh, that was fun. And then this happens. And then this happens. Yeah.

We love when things like this happened, actually, because it's often an opportunity to understand something we didn't know about the system. What are some of the limitations you see now? I would say that most things that a person does in their daily lives, Atlas or other humanoids, can't really do that yet. do that yet. Like what? Well, just putting on clothes in the morning or pouring your cup of coffee and walking around

the house with it. That's too difficult for Atlas? Yeah, I think there are no humanoids that do that nearly as well as a person would do that. But I think the thing is really exciting now is we see a pathway to get there. A pathway provided by AI. What stands out in this Atlas is its brain. Invidia chips, the ones that helped launch the AI revolution with ChatGPGPD. process the flood of collected data, moving this humanoid robot closer to something like common sense.

So the analogy might be, if I was teaching a child how to do free throws and basketball, if I allow them to just explore and come up with their own solutions, sometimes they can come up with a solution that I didn't anticipate. And that's true for these systems as well. Atlas can see its surroundings and is figuring out how the physical world works. so that someday you can put a robot like this in a factory and just explain to it what you would like to do and it has enough knowledge about how the world works

and has a good chance of doing it. There's a lot of excitement in the industry right now about the potential of building robots that are smart enough to really become general purpose. Robert Plater, then CEO of Boston Dynamics, spearheaded the company's humanoid development. He had been building toward this moment for more than 30 years.

The cornerstone was this robotic dog, Spot, introduced about a decade ago. Spots are trained in heat, cold, and varied terrain and roam the halls of Boston Dynamics. So we have some cameras, thermal sensors, acoustic sensors, an array of sensors on its back that lets it collect data about the health of a factory.

Spots carry out quality, control checks at Hyundai, making sure the cars have the right parts. They conduct security and industrial inspections at hundreds of sites around the world. What began with Spot has evolved into Atlas. So this robot is capable of superhuman motion, and so it's going to be able to exceed what we can do. So you are creating a robot that is meant to exceed the capabilities of humans. Why not, right? We would like things

that could be stronger than us or tolerate more heat than us or definitely go into a dangerous place where we shouldn't be going. So you really want superhuman capabilities. To a lot of people, that sounds scary. You don't foresee a world of Terminators. Absolutely not.

I think if you saw how hard we have to work to get the robots to just do some of the straightforward tasks we want them to do, that would dispel that worry about sentience and rogue robots. We wondered if people might have more immediate concerns. We saw workers doing a job at the Hyundai plant that Atlas is being trained to perform. I guarantee you there are going to be people who will say, I'm going to lose my job to a robot.

Work does change. So the really repetitive, really backer, breaking labor is really going to end up being done by robots. But these robots are not so autonomous that they don't need to be managed. They need to be built. They need to be trained. They need to be serviced. Plater told us it could be several years before Atlas joins the Hyundai workforce full-time. Goldman Sachs predicts the market for humanoids will reach $38 billion within the decade. Boston Dynamics and other U.S. robot makers are far.

to come out on top. But they're not the only ones in the ring. Chinese companies are proving to be formidable challengers. They are running to win. Are they outpacing us? The Chinese government has a mission to win the robotics race. Technically, I believe we remain in the lead, but there's a real threat there that simply through the scale of investment,

we could fall behind. To stay ahead, Hyundai made the lead Hyundai made that big investment in Boston Dynamics. Four robots. We were at the Georgia plant when Atlas engineer, Zach Jakowski, presented Atlas to Hong Su Kim, Hyundai's head of global strategy.

He came all the way from South Korea to check in on the brave new world the carmaker is funding. What do you think of the progress that they've made with Atlas? I think we are on track about development, Atlas so far is very successful.

It's a kind of a start of a great journey. The destination? That humanoid future we mentioned at the start. Robots like us, working beside us, walking among us. It's enough to make your head spin. Since our story first aired, Boston Dynamics unveiled an upgrade, an Atlas that's taller and stronger than the version we should. than the version we saw.

The new Atlas will begin training at Hyundai's Georgia factory this summer. The Second World War is the largest event in human history. A 20-part series with Tom Hanks. No part of the globe was untouched. No life unchanged. Experience the ultimate account of World War II.

Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are. Listen to World War II with Tom Hanks on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut 14 years ago, more than 170 children have been killed in school shootings across the U.S. They've left behind devastated families and friends and empty bedrooms they once filled with life. For many parents, these rooms have become sanctuaries, a tangible link to a child they can

still feel but no longer hold. As we first told you last year, Steve Hartman, a veteran CBS news correspondent, and Lou Boe, a photographer, have spent the last eight years asking parents whose children have been killed for permission to take pictures of the empty rooms they've left behind. No easy task. They are, after all, portraits of a child who's no longer there. Up a flight of stairs in their Nashville home, Chad and Jada Scroo, took us to see their daughter Hallie's room. It remains as she left it one Monday morning three years ago. I don't think anything's changed.

Hallie Scruggs loved Legos, Tennessee football, and hiding things in a toy safe from her three older brothers. The books she and her mom read together at night are still stacked by her bed. A school project with important milestones in her life of a reminder Hallie was just nine years old. First two, first soccer game. First Tennessee game.

That was a mile stretch. Yeah. This is the first time they held her. I love that picture. I do wonder sometimes, like, what will we do with this room eventually? All these physical things are tangible ways of reminding me. Like, she was real. She was here.

She lived with us. Yeah. In some ways, this room kind of holds the space for her. And so... And it still does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oopsies. Hallie was killed along with two classmates, Evelyn Dick House and William Kinney, in a shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville in 2023. What has grief been like for you? It felt like everything collapsed, everything internally. Pain that, I mean, gosh, it's just hard to endure. And then, you know, you have to relearn how to do everything,

like how to eat. out of sleep and you just have a new relationship with pain and sadness and anger. There's been joy too, but the sadness has been, was just, I mean, overwhelming. Chad is a pastor at the church that's part of the Covenant School. He was drawn to Halley's room the day she was killed. I wanted her room to lay under bed to smell. I knew that would go. And I wanted...

You knew the smell would disappear. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And her blankie was there and everything was there. And you could smell her that night. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that was true probably for a week or two after. She was trying to get her back.

It's not possible. But you don't believe that. And so anything that... That draws that possibility closer, I wanted to be there for that. So, yeah, I went in and just laid on her bed and cried by myself. Has your relationship to the room changed over time?

Maybe it's not as frequent that I go up there, but the feelings haven't changed when I go in the room. You know, it kind of captures all the feelings of sadness and joy just because it's a capsule of time. I think initially that room was for me, an indication of like presence. And now it feels more of an indication of absence.

You know, and it feels more like a relic now. Like a relic? A relic. Yeah. Some 2,000 miles away in Santa Clarita, California, another room, another child killed. This is Gracie Muleberger.

She was 15. She adored her brothers and her van sneakers. She was killed six and a half years ago, in the Saugas High School shooting. Cindy and Brian Muleberger are her parents. Do you remember the first time you went into Gracie's room after? Right when we got home from the hospital. You went right to her room?

Right to her room. And that's where I spent, like, the next week or two. Yeah. I slept in her bed. I just, it's the closest I could feel to her, so... Did that feeling, though, of the room providing comfort, did that last for a long time? Yes.

Oh, yeah, always. Always. Yeah. Gracie Muleberger and Hallie Scruggs' rooms are two of eight that were photographed as part of the project begun by Steve Hartman. On the very first day back at school, who began covering these tragedies for CBS News 29 years ago. This was his first, a shooting at a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, two years before the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. It was news at the time. A school shooting was actually big news.

As opposed to now. As opposed to now, it still gets coverage, but it's usually a day or two. And people forget about them, I'd say by the end of the week many times. Initially, in your mind, what was the idea? I wanted to shake people out of this numbness that I was feeling whenever there was a school shooting now.

I was moving on quickly. I was forgetting the names of the children who were lost, and I knew the country was doing the same. So eight years ago, he began writing letters to parents asking to photograph their murdered children's rooms. Because when you go into a kid's room, you go into my kid's room, you see their whole history. You see every dream, every desire, everything they value. It's all there on the walls and sitting on the shelves.

Or scattered on the floor. Or scattered on the floor in some cases. It's all there. And I don't think there's really a better way to get to know a kid and to remember a life than to look around that room. to stand in that space. Eight families whose children were killed in five different schools agreed to let photographer Lou Boepe into their kids' rooms. At an exhibit in New York, he showed us some of the 10,000 photos he's taken.

You know, I'm trying to take a picture of a child who's not there. Dominic Blackwell's room is still filled with SpongeBob. He was killed along with Gracie Muleberger at Saugas High School. Dominic was 14. A basket of his laundry still waits to be washed. A toothpaste tube remains uncapped in the bathroom of 14-year-old Alyssa Al-Haddaf, killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Charlotte Bacon loved pink.

She was six, killed at Sandy Hook. There's a library book in her room that's now 13 years overdue. If that's not a little girl's room, I don't know what is. And even this, this to me, it's so poignant the way the head is tilted down. It's such a reminder that while everybody else moves on from what is a story to them, the families never move on. That's part of the reason the families did agree because it's very frustrating for them when the country moves on. And they certainly haven't moved on and will never move on. I think there's such weight in for these parents and being the holders of the memory,

that they are the only ones who remember. Excuse me. It's okay. What are you thinking about? I've been in a lot of these rooms as well. And there's such sadness in being the last ones left who remember everything about this child. And that's why they can't surrender the room. because you surrender the rooms,

and that's just another piece of their kid that's gone. Steve Hartman's project is the subject of an Academy Award-winning documentary on Netflix. It follows him and Lou Boepe as they travel across the country visiting rooms, including Dominic Blackwells and Gracie Mulebergers. This is what she was going to wear on Friday? Well, she was either going to wear this outfit or this outfit. She had, like, two set out. Did you do this often?

Prepare the next day's close. Yeah, Monday through Friday. When Brian and Cindy Muleberger received Steve's letter in 2024, they were considering moving, but didn't know how they could leave their daughter's room behind. How much of the discussion was about what do we do with the room? I would say that was the primary driver of us not moving sooner. I mean, after the shooting, we wanted to get out of town. But you didn't want to leave that room?

But we didn't want to leave that room. Yeah. You know, it's like, do you take a lot of pictures of it and then try to recreate it somewhere else? We didn't know what to do with it. And it really wasn't until this opportunity to work with Steve on this film that we started feeling a piece about it. Last year, the Muleburgers felt ready. They sold their house and packed up Gracie's room. This was from, I believe, when she was in Girl Scouts. It's cute. They found mementos, artwork, and cards she made they hadn't seen in years. You are the best dad a girl can have. Love, Grace, you read.

P.S., I love you. Oh, my goodness. All these treasures, right? For now, they placed them in a storage unit while they build a new home and a new life in Georgia. When you found this, did you know how you wanted to, kind of incorporate Gracie? Not initially. This past fall, they showed us the plot of land

where they'll live, and an area they're going to create called Gracie's Point. So this is going to be Gracie's Point? Yeah, this kind of area right here, where when you're out here, you know, all you've got is nature and the water. And a place, a fire pit,

a place where people can come together. Yeah, come together. She loved doing s'mores and things like that. It cannot be a more beautiful spot. Yeah. So peaceful, which is what we were looking for. Is this project over for you? No.

If parents want us to, we'll continue to document the rooms, just so they have the pictures. I wish this project would end, but I don't anticipate it will. Back in Nashville, Chad and Jada Scruggs have no plans to change Hallie's room, but they did send some of her drawings in journals to an artist, Brenda Bogart, who created this collage portrait of her. Everything on this canvas is something that was made by Halley's hand. Brenda went through and noticed a theme of, I am happy, I am happy, I am happy. She pretty much ended every journal entry with I am happy. She wanted to make sure that that got put on Hallie.

When people see the photos of Halley's room, what would you? like them to take away? This is not a generic person, you know, someone that uniquely bore God's image in the world and irreplaceable. And we just want you to know her. You know, she's worth being known. We don't have a lot of aspirations beyond that. We want you to come step inside of our world for a moment, so.

inside the sadness. Yeah. And feel it. People can talk about solutions, but until they feel the weight of the problem, I don't know how to really talk about solutions. How the Mule Burger family lives by Gracie's words. You only have one life to live, so why not live it great?

At 60 Minutes Overtime.com. Want to see eyes pop and jaws drop? Ask your soccer-loving friends about Laminia Mall, an 18-year-old sensation from Spain. Better yet, watch him play, ideally in person, which you can do this month as the World Cup gets underway in North America for the first time in 32 years. This World Cup likely will double as a valedictory

for global soccer's goat, Leonel Messi of Argentina. But it will also be a debut showcase for the extravagant generational talent of the player who's been cast as Messi's heir. As we first told you in November, Laminia Mal is not yet licensed to drive, not yet liberated from wearing braces. Already, though, the world, like the ball he dribbles, is at his feet. Summer of 24, Munich, Germany, semifinals of the European Soccer Championship.

Remember what you were doing at age 16? Spanish soccer whizkid Lamin Yamal was doing this. A bit of sorcery that helped Spain vault to victory over France, and eventually to the European title. And it vaulted Lamin out of adolescence and indentures. to global sports stardom. Turned out he was just limbering up. Now all of 18, he's a star winger

for his pro club FC Barcelona, aka Barsa. He doesn't just score goals. He's a master of improv. Watch here, it's almost like slapstick comedy as he eludes a gaggle of grown men from the other team. You're a teenager. Sometimes these guys are 10, 15 years older than you. They've got kids at home, and you're still clowning them.

If I were a fullback, I wouldn't like it if a player who's much better than me were to keep getting away from me all the time. I'd ask them, please slow down a little. Otherwise, my friends would make memes about it. What do you see as your soccer superpower? I think that I would like to brighten people's day. For example, if someone is sad, they can come to a game, watch me, and feel better, so they go home happier than they were before. Having finished second in the Ballandor, Global Soccer's equivalent of the MVP race, Lameen has currency with his generation.

Oh, look at this. He's also enraptured soccer purists, like 71-year-old Ray Hudson, a former pro player, coach and broadcaster who's covered Lameen's games. Astonishing. How good is this kid? He's extremely, extremely, extremely good. This is an absolute. uncut diamond.

There's times I've been watching him where I could swear that he's thrown his shadow the wrong way. And the defenders are just bewitched by this shift of the way. He's a skittabug. And like watching a dragonfly, you know how when you see a dragonfly,

you... Put yourself in the defender's shoes. How would you defend that? You have to ignore him, which is ridiculous, because once Yammal sends you the wrong way with that wonderful fame that he has, the defender has to pay to get back into the stadium. You need the ticket to get back on the pitch.

Exactly. Beautiful. Intoxicating to watch. Try averting your eyes from this. Note the touch and spin, enough to shame a pull hustler that Lamin Yamal puts on the ball. It's also the playmaking and vision expressed in exquisite passes. The ball is more than a sphere he kicks. He calls it his first love.

You ever talk to the soccer ball? No, I'm not that crazy, but it could happen in the future. What do you think you might say to the ball? I'd probably ask it to marry me and to have lots of kids. Inasmuch as an 18-year-old can be said to have grown up, Lamin did so here in Rocafonda, a struggling North African immigrant enclave a half-hour northeast of Barcelona.

He was born in Spain to a Moroccan father an Equatorial Ghanaian mother. He found his footing on this concrete slab a short kick from the Mediterranean, a make-do soccer pitch, but also a promenade. The steps still double as bleachers. The graffiti reads, In the neighborhood of Rocafonda,

more laminia malls, and fewer evictions. I'm wondering what's more stressful, playing for Barsa or being the little kid playing in Rocafonda against the big kids? I think that without a doubt when I was in Rocafonda, because in the end, it was a neighborhood where no one knew what was going to happen in their lives. The truth is, no one knew whether they would become a soccer player, an architect, a painter, or whether they'd find a job. You see your parents working, they can't be with you all the time, and you feel not nervous, but uncertain about what's going to happen to you.

Today, after Lamin scores a goal, he acknowledges the old neighborhood. The 304. What does that symbolize? What does that represent? It's the symbol for our neighborhood's zip code, because in Barcelona, the zip code starts with 08, and ours is 08304. So what is? It's right hand?

This here? Okay. Yes, like that. Just blocks from the concrete pitch in Rocafunda, Lemines' Uncle Abdul runs the L.Y.304 Cafe. Do you think, a few years ago I was teaching this kid how to tie his shoe, and now he's scoring goals and bringing joy all over the world. Yes, Lamin was very savvy as a child, doing everything on his own.

He has the maturity of a 25 or 30-year-old. Lamin's prodigious talent was such that he was spotted by Barcelona scouts at age six. Soon he was taking the train to practice at Lama Sia, Barsa's famed youth academy. From the start, he stood out. By 15, he was making his pro debut for Barza, the youngest player in the club's 126-year history. Two years and one die job later, he's lived up to his promise. One thing that struck us watching you play is that when the Game Titans, you want to make something happen, you want to make magic, where does that come from? Where I used to play in my neighborhood.

There were like walls where people would sit, and I think there was no. No better feeling than getting the people who are sitting there to stand up, to laugh at the opponents. I think it's the best feeling in the world, and something that reminds me of that a lot is when I'm playing on the field and the fans get up and are surprised by a play I've made. I get the feeling you don't mind being a star. No, honestly, I don't. In fact, I like it.

Lameen's soccer sensibilities jive with Barcelona. This is the city of Anthony Gowdy, the architect who's deceased. distinct buildings define Barcelona, contorting possibility. Likewise, Lamin is not merely a creative talent, but a bender of convention. Still, he's most closely associated with another Barcelona icon, a player enshrined at the club's museum who played for Barsa from 2004 to 2021, and won eight Ballandor. You ever made it this far in an interview and not had to answer a question about Messi?

I was surprised, honestly. I was surprised because there were moments where you could have brought him up, but you didn't. So I knew the question was coming, but this topic has come up later than usual. Should we get your standard answer or should we try to put spin on the ball? You ever hear the expression, game respects game? I think that I respect him in the end for what he's been, for what he is to soccer.

And if we ever meet one day on a soccer field, there will be that mutual respect. He's the best in history. We both know I don't want to be Messi, and Messi knows I don't want to be him. I want to follow my own path, and that's it. The Messi-Lameen bracketing began way earlier than fans perhaps realize. We visited Joan Montfort in his photography studio in the middle of Barcelona. He showed us a series of images he took in October 2007.

Then 20-year-old Leonel Messi, posing with a three-month-old in his mother. The family had won a raffle to appear alongside a Barso player in a UNICEF calendar. That chubby-cheek baby? Impossible. It's Laminia Mall. What are the odds that you have Lino Messi on the verge of stardom with Laminia Mall, now on the verge of stardom? It's like winning the lottery. It's a one in ten million chance.

And I don't know. Can you imagine if I told you right now that there's a photo of the lottery? of Michael Jordan giving a bath to LeBron James? Montfort, of course, had no idea at the time that he was taking historic photos. Do you believe in the soccer gods? I didn't, but now I think I'm starting to believe in them a little bit. Fast forward, not even 18 years.

Lameen's whole family, including his Moroccan grandma, came together last July when he signed a contract with Barsa, widely reported to pay him around $30 million a season. That day, he was also conferred number 10, the same number messy wore. Worried about the crushing weight of expectation, you got the wrong guy. There's some noise as well that, boy,

life is coming out this kid so fast and slow down, let me and you know, Mal. What's your response to that? Well, I would say that if, for example, you have a job and you get asked if you want to be the boss. What would you say? Yes or no? Am I going too fast?

So that's my answer. One thing we keep hearing is this kid's got it. Right. What is it? How do you describe moonlight? How do you describe candlelight? How do you count the bubbles in a glass of champagne? I don't know.

I just know when I say it, it's bloody beautiful. Even Ray Hudson, for all his gushing, acknowledges there are plenty of blazing young soccer talents who fizzle out. What could go wrong? Any number of things, you know, injuries, personal disputes, his family life. We'll see it on the pitch because the green doesn't lie.

Athletes have their fans and their support teams. Successful athletes have people in their circle too who can tell them no, who can call them on their nonsense. Who is that for you? The truth is that everyone says no. Everyone in my circle says no to everything. I want to go out? No.

If I say that I want to go out to eat, no. The question should be, who do you listen to? My mother. Can you be a normal 18-year-old at times? That's a difficult question because, in the end, an 18-year-old kid gets out of school and goes home. I go out to practice while four paparazzi are at my house asking me questions about my life. I turn on the TV, and I'm on TV. I walk down the street and I see a kid wearing my jersey.

I want to go out for a drink and I can't because people will stop me. I always try to find the simplest things to do like play video games or spend time with my brother. But yes, honestly, I do believe that I'll never be a normal 18-year-old because people don't see me as normal and I won't be able to act that way. Some athletes have signature tattoos. As you've no doubt noticed, Flamine has signature braces, loose brackets in Spanish. containing him in a way defenders cannot. Braces come on or off before World Cup.

I wish it were up to me, but I don't know. I'll have to call my dentist and ask if I'll still have braces or not. But I think they suit me. I look good with brackets. I'll leave them on then. The goals and the assists are all well and good, but you've made braces cool. Doesn't get better than that.

Yes, yeah, totally. With or without braces, Lamin and his Spanish teammates will be on the short list of World Cup favorites this summer in North America. Just ask the star himself. Whether it's Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali or Joe Namath, these are all athletes way older than you, there is a history of guaranteeing victory. So I ask you, does Spain win the World Cup? In English? Yes. Spain plays its opening match tomorrow in Atlanta.

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