60 Minutes - Polymarket, CRISPR Kids, Lamine Yamal

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

As the popularity of online prediction markets grows, correspondent Anderson Cooper sits down with Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan in his first network television interview. The 27-year-old newly minted billionaire talks about his platform, where users can bet on politics and pop culture, sports and finance, even war and peace, and how all that data can be used to forecast the future. After a three-year U.S. ban, Coplan explains how Polymarket works, and how the company finds itself poised to reenter the U.S. market with backing from Washington, Wall Street and Silicon Valley.  America’s next wave of scientific talent may come from Lambert High School, where students used CRISPR to develop a promising new way to detect and treat Lyme disease, which affects nearly half a million Americans each year. Correspondent Bill Whitaker meets these “CRISPR kids” as they take their breakthrough to iGEM—the global biotech Olympics in Paris—and face off against the world’s new rising force in biotechnology: China.  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 ahead of next summer’s World Cup in North America. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the main page for Polymarket. Polymarkets users bet on all kinds of questions. Fed decision, Bolivia presidential election. Will Taylor Swift get married this year? When will there be a ceasefire in Ukraine? Who will win the 2028 election? And how accurate is it? It's the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now,

until someone else creates some sort of super crystal ball. America's future as a science leader may depend on students like the ones you are going to meet tonight. We're doing something in our high school lab that could potentially have a huge impact for like millions of people. This thing could help save lives. They did it to prove they are the best in the world at this prestigious international science competition. I'm hoping we finished top 10, but even that, I don't know. We'll see. How did the judges see it? So the winners are... Stay tuned. 18-year-old Spanish soccer sensation Laminia 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 Stahl. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Sharon Alfonci. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Anderson Cooper.

Those stories and in our last minute a breakthrough in tracking Monarch Butterflies, tonight on 60 Minutes. Nearly a year before Donald Trump was elected in 2024, an online prediction market called Polymarket offered its users a chance to bet against each other on who would win the presidency. $3.6 billion was wagered on that one question. In the final month of the campaign, most pollsters were saying the race was too close. to call. But that was conventional wisdom. Polymarket relied on the wisdom of crowds and correctly

predicted the outcome. It's not just elections, Polymarket helps its customers bet on its all kinds of questions. Who will win the Super Bowl? Will Taylor Swift get married this year? When will there be a ceasefire in Ukraine? The company was founded by a precocious college dropout named Shane Copeland, who started building Polymarket five years ago when he was just 21. Prediction markets aren't new, but not many have earned the backing of billionaire investors like Polymarket has. If it all sounds a bit confounding, it did to us too. So we started by asking Shane Copeland the most basic question of all.

What is Polymarket? It's a site where you can basically bet on current events, some sort of question about the future, like an election. And as a result, when a ton of people are betting, you get the betting odds, which basically basically tell you how likely each outcome is. And how accurate is it? It's the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now, until someone else creates some sort of super crystal ball.

Shane Copeland may be prone to hyperbole, but he's definitely on to something. The race is a dead heat. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, while pundits opined and pollsters canvassed, Polymarket posted a simple question for users to put money on, who will be the presidential election? winner in 2024. Donald Trump started pulling away in early October.

I think one thing that's important to understand about Polly Market is, it is not a poll. That's not the function of Polly Market. Correct. Polymarket is trying to predict the outcome. The percentage of people who are going to vote for a candidate is not the same as who's likely to win. And you would look at Polly Market and it would say 70-30 for Trump. And people are like, no way, it's going to be 70-30. But he could win by one point, but he's 70-per-to-win. Which is a different question that pollsters are asked. Exactly.

But it's the question people actually want to know. Polly Market posted another question, months before President Biden's disastrous debate. Biden drops out a presidential race. Early on, the odds hovered between 10 and 30 percent. The market was pricing it that it was unlikely, but that it was possible. And ultimately, during the debate, the price started skyrocketing. You could watch it during the debate. Exactly. And everyone was talking about it.

Because by that point, odds were on Polly Market, he's going to drop out. Yes. The idea that this was able to go and surface this at a time when a lot of the mainstream media, and like no knock to mainstream media, but a lot of people were trying to say, hey, he's going to stay in. So the fact that Polly Market was able to be the signal through the noise there was our first step on the scene of mainstream politics. This is the main page for Polly Market. At first glance, the site is a lot to take in. There are 15 categories to choose from.

like politics, culture, sports, and finance. Within each, there are a lot of boxes with simple questions about an upcoming event. Fed decision, Bolivia presidential election, Russian Ukraine ceasefire in 2025. How many questions are there at any one time? It usually fluctuates around 10,000. 10,000? But a lot of them have multiple outcomes or multiple variations. Every question has a yes or no answer.

To wager, you click on one of them. You make money if you're right, you lose. money if you're wrong. And as a result, it creates this information that's really useful for people. The percentages next to the questions are the odds, determined by all the other bets that have already been made. As more people wager and news breaks, the odds change. How do you select the questions? Look, if something is being discussed in the news, if something is of importance, whether it's geopolitically, you know, macroeconomically, culturally, we want to have a polling market for it. So you can go through and you can see. There are questions or markets to bet on just about

everything, not just Taylor Swift's marriage, but when will she get pregnant? How many tweets will Elon Musk send in a week? This is predictions on who will be the top Spotify artists in 2025. Yeah, and the market's very confident it will be a bad bunny. Some markets are arguably in bad taste, wagers on conspiracies, even wars. Elections everywhere, however, are one of the platform's biggest draws. Here you go to global elections, and you've got the Irish election is just... There's $135 million being bet on the Irish election? When we met with Copeland last month, more than $3.6 million had been wagered on whether or not Venezuela's president, Nicholas Maduro, would be out of power by the end of the year. Polymarket users didn't think so.

They gave it only a 23% chance. And if you buy no on that, and you're buying it at 78 cents, and at the end of the He's still in power. Yeah, you get a dollar per share. So you've made a profit of more than 20. 22 cents per share. I can see why this would be, I mean, I don't want to use the term addictive, but it would be compelling. I mean, maybe it is addictive, I don't know, but it's certainly compelling.

This is how I see it. If you are into geopolitics, this creates an incentive for you to dig in to what's going on in Venezuela and try and get an edge. You grew up the west side. Uptown, yeah. Shane Copeland is a native New Yorker. He dropped out of NYU his freshman year, and when COVID hit, found himself looking for simple answers to complex questions. New York City was shut down, and it's like, when is this going to end? When's the vaccine going to be ready?

When is shelter-in-place going to be over? And prediction markets can take all these disparate opinions that people are pontificating about or that they have really good reason to believe and distill it down into one probability. But if nobody knows for sure... Yeah, well, if people knew for sure, it would be 100%. But ultimately, it's going to get it. you something that's better than whatever you're seeing on the internet where it's just a complete free-for-all of open outcry.

But predictive markets do rely on someone having some inside information. Yeah, I think that people going and having an edge to the market is a good thing. Obviously you need to curate them and you need to be really clear and stringent on where the line is drawn and like sort of ethics and we spend a lot of time on that. But it's sort of an inevitability that this will happen and there's a lot of benefits from it and people will adapt. The site still has critics. Some worry certain questions could lead people to commit crimes to win a big enough bet.

Polymarket was criticized for some of their markets about the L.A. wildfires earlier this year. There was a polymarket bet about how many acres would burn in the L.A. wildfires. Some have labeled it like arson markets. Someone could, in order to win that, try to burn more acreage. There were a lot of conversation about it, and there was a very select few of markets that felt that they were the most informational. with like the least sort of, you know, risk. These are really small markets, and there's tons of markets. And I understand this is really sensitive.

It's the big markets that draw big betters. And this is one of polymarkets biggest. He's wagered more than $400 million so far. Online, he goes by the name Domer. I don't think of myself as a gambler. I mean, I'm taking very, very well-researched views on things. I feel like it's much more akin to investing. betting. Betting is Domer's full-time job. He said he made nearly $3 million last year on

Polymarket. He used to be a professional poker player, but gave it up. Prediction markets, he says, are more exciting. Every day I'm kind of going into battle. You wake up, I don't even drink coffee, and you're in battle. You are wrong. I look at my phone within five seconds of waking up. What have I missed? My phone is my coffee. What has happened overnight? Yeah. Because the news doesn't sleep. Did you bet on the papal conclave? Yes, for sure. How, I mean, a papal conclave is a hermetically sealed environment. Information does not get out.

Right. Nobody was putting money down that there'd be an American Pope, but you were. Yeah, and his odds were 250 to 1. So he was a super, super, super, super long shot. He won $100,000 on the Pope and even more picking J.D. Vance to be Donald Trump's running mate. He started betting on him five months before he was selected when Polly Market was only giving Vance a 2% chance. What did you see that made you think, oh, he might pick JD-Vant?

So that goes back to 2016 when he picked Mike Pence. And buried in one of the articles for why he picked Mike Pence is that Mike Pence had a one-syllable name. And Trump has a one-syllable name. And Trump is very into marketing. And so I was looking at the names, and I was like, who's one-syllable? And not only is Vance one-syllable, he's only two letters off of Pence. So you bet $4,000 and you ended up winning $2,000?

50,000? Yes, yeah. It's a smart play. It is a good bet, yeah. Shane Copeland made a risky bet when he built Polymarket in 2020. He did it fast in just three months and didn't seek regulatory approval as the law required. His chief competitor, Kalshi, did. In 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission launched an investigation into Polymarket.

Copeland cooperated and ultimately paid a penalty. It was a $1.4 million fine, and also... It was a settlement. And you could not have customers in the United States. Yeah, we had to go in geo-block trading in the U.S. and move certain operations offshore. And it wasn't, hey, you're banned from trading the U.S. It's like until you're licensed.

I mean, it was breaking the law. I mean, people say breaking the law, it's like which law, you know? So, if anything, it's incompatible. It's incompatible with the law. Yeah, with the regulatory matrix that existed. The regulatory matrix was pretty clear. U.S. customers couldn't trade on Polly Market, but plenty continued to. All they needed was a VPN connection to mask their computer's location.

In 2024, in the final weeks of the Biden administration, Copeland got a surprise visit at home from the FBI. There was a lot of yelling and banged down the door. Like knocking this is the FBI or like... No, like a battering ram. He wasn't arrested, but agents seized his phones and computers. But with a new administration came a new appreciation for prediction markets. In July, the government dropped its investigations.

And Polly Market was able to buy a fully licensed, legally compliant trading platform, paving the way for their U.S. customers to bet openly. Three months ago, Copeland named Donald Trump Jr., already an advisor to Kalshi to Pollymarket's advisory board. And Trump Jr.'s 1789 Capital Fund invested around $10 million in the company. I think there's going to be people watching who think that you put the president's son on your advisory board to get influence, to be able to protect yourself. So it's definitely not to protect myself. I mean, look, like they invested, right? We're in this admin.

This admin is very pro-innovation and pro-crypto and pro-polymarket, which is amazing. The administration. Yeah. And, you know, I need help navigating that, right? I'm a young entrepreneur. If I have people who believe in what I do who understand how politics works and can help me, help guide me and teach me, you know, there's nothing wrong about that. Last month, Polly Market got its biggest validation yet.

The company that owns the New York Stock Exchange announced it was investing $2 billion in Polly Market. Days later, we met Copeland on the trading floor. What's like to see your name up there? Yeah, I love it. I love it. It's cool, man. He told us Polly Market's data will soon be integrated into the exchange to help investors and traders get an end. edge. What valuation now has Polymarket been given? $9 billion post-money valuation. Nine billion dollars. Did you anticipate that?

I mean, I didn't start it to not get here, you know. Shane Copeland is now a billionaire, at least on paper. And Polymarket, it still hasn't made any profit. It gives away its main product, its predictions, for free, and doesn't charge fees on trades, at least not yet. How many people use Polymarket today? I mean, there's tens millions of people who are looking at the odds, and it's mid hundreds of thousands of people who are trading. But for you, the goal is a billion people? Yeah. So will Polymarket reach a billion people in five years, yes or now? It's a great question. What are the odds on it? I love it. A billion people is a lot. There's going to be a lot that we have to get right.

The thing that drives me is that there are billions of people who could find value in this, which means until those people have Polly Market are getting value from Polly Market, job's not done. At Capital One, we're more than just a credit card company. We're people just like you who believe in the power of yes. Yes to new opportunities. Yes to second chances.

Yes to a fresh start. That's why we've helped over 4 million Canadians get access to a credit card because at Capital One, we say yes, so you don't have to hear another no. What will you do with your yes? Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. America's future as a science leader may depend on students like the ones you're going to meet tonight,

teenagers from Lambert High School in suburban Atlanta. They may have just found a better way to detect and treat Lyme disease, which affects nearly a half million Americans annually. Their primary tool? The revolutionary gene editing technique known as CRISPR. And these CRISPR kids did it to try to prove they are the best in the world, competing at a kind of science Olympics in Paris called IGM, short for international genetically engineered machine.

But to win, they would have to go up against teams from China, the rising power in biotechnology. In Lambert High School's lab, Sean Lee and his classmates are teenage genetic engineers manipulating the building blocks of life. And what we're going to do is we're going to move each of these samples into these mixes. And these mixes have everything we need in order to amplify our DNA. It's currently amplifying. Yes.

All right. And we'll have to do this three more times for our different samples. so you would kind of swipe across. We went to check out the IGM team's project for the big Paris competition. We first decided to map out where Lyme is most prevalent. Their presentation seemed more like a pitch from a biotech startup than a public high school science class,

along with Sean, senior of any Carthic is also a team captain. And so it's a novel way of CRISPR that detects. And so we have to create a guide RNA and when that guide RNA is recognized, the protein gets activated and it collaterally cleaves or cuts everything around it. That just went right over my head.

This is light years beyond my biology class, where the high point was dissecting frogs. So you're just going to measure out 50. This is called synthetic biology. A popular example of synthetic biology is golden rice, where you're able to engineer this rice to have the specific vitamins that you want that it's more nutrient dense.

And this would sound like cliche, but it's just endless possibilities. So you can just do whatever you want with it, as long as it's ethically correct. To compete at IGM, you need to use synthetic biology to solve real world problems. Lime disease cases have doubled over the last decade. These teens set their sights on finding a better way

to detect and treat Lyme disease, something that has eluded adult scientists for decades. Transmitted by infected ticks, Lyme can cause arthritis, nerve damage, and heart problems if left untreated. One of the biggest problems with Lyme is the lack of, like, being able to diagnose it. So a lot of people will go years, like we've met someone who went 15 years without a diagnosis. Current tests make it difficult to detect Lyme in the first two weeks when it's easiest to treat. Lambert's big idea for better and earlier detection was to zero in on a protein generated by the disease. the infection.

And this is the process where you work with CRISPR. Yes. Using the gene editing tool CRISPR and a simulated blood serum, they were able to target specific DNA strands where the protein hides, then snip away extraneous genetic material to expose the protein, enabling them to detect it with a simple kit-style test, like a COVID or pregnancy strip. Did you guys ever think, this is way above my abilities, way above my area of knowledge, where you just dive right in?

Yeah, so actually we did reach out to a bunch of different professors and stakeholders who gave feedback on our project. And they did tell us in the beginning that this might not be so feasible because you're trying to tackle such a big thing. They were also tackling how to treat Lyme. Standard therapy uses antibiotics. But Lambert planned to use CRISPR instead, targeting the bacteria that causes the disease. To make it work, they had to build software to model how best to use CRISPR. So as a teacher, is it easy to teach them because they're so smart? You teach me. Are you kidding? They are so smart that I can't keep up.

Kate Scherer is their biotechnology teacher. Because they are still teenagers, so they're thinking so far. out of the box. This project in particular, I warn them this is very high-risk, high reward. I can't imagine any of this working, but I'm happy to help you as much as I can. Oh, my God. Lambert's team had advantages beyond audacity and brain power. Their lab is college level, funded by taxpayers and donors. This is one of Georgia's most affluent, high-achieving school districts. The student body is majority Asian-American. The I-GEM team is entirely Asian-American. The I-GEM team is entirely

Asian American, children of immigrants. Lambert also is a sports juggernaut. You can't miss the signs, but the white IGM lab coat might be the most coveted uniform of all. I understand that parents move to this district so their kids can get into the IGM program, and not just from Georgia, but from around the world.

Yes, and there are families that move specifically, thinking that, well, my kid will be in biotech, and then they'll have a chance to try out for the IGM team. About 100 students compete for roughly 10 spots on Lambert's IGM team each year. Applicants submit a project proposal, take a test, and face an interview. Having a special skill like engineering or coding doesn't hurt, and you have to be willing to put in insanely long hours. I need that to work. With a month to go, they hit a string of successes. That stripe showed they could detect Lyme as early as two days after infection,

far sooner than the two weeks with existing tests. Senior Claire Lee told us they also saw promising results in treating the disease. Doctors will be able to use this to identify Lyme disease and perhaps treat Lyme disease. That's the goal. What do you think of that? We're doing something in our high school lab that could potentially have a huge impact for millions of people.

It's not like we're just saying like, oh, I'm just doing this little thing that might help my grave. This thing could help save lives. What they found is just the first step, much more testing will be needed. But they had more immediate concerns. They raced to finish

before the international competition in Paris, pulling all-nighters to write results, code, and build a website explaining their project for the IGM judges. It takes all that to be best in the world, the award Lambert won in 2022. Why do you do it? I like to win, and so a lot of this is a competition, so I like to win. You think you have a really good chance? I think it depends on what the other teams bring. Hopes were high as the Eiffel Tower when the students from Atlanta,

landed in Paris at the end of October. More than 400 teams, a third of them high schoolers, were competing in IGM 2025, elite synthetic biology with a dash of nerd-proud culture. My first time coming here, I was so overwhelmed. This was Oveney Carthick's third year at IGM, and she was keeping an eye on the other teams. Is there a project here that has blown your mind?

Almost every single one. One was just a few feet away from their booth, Great Bay in Shenzhen, China. Great Bay's project developed a new enzyme for treating indoor mold. Other high school projects included designing crops to grow on Mars and eyedrops to treat cataracts. As IGM teams filled the floor this year at the Paris Convention Center, one thing was easy to see. In the United States this year,

we have 14 high school IGM teams. Asia has 120. Janet Stand-Evon runs IGM's international high school division. Before this, she taught at Lambert, created its IGM program, and helped it win the grand prize in 2022. Are you thinking to yourself, this needs to be in every school? Yes. Oh, that's been our goal since day one, is let's start with Georgia as a little test bid and see what we can do here.

She left Lambert three years ago after securing federal funding to take synthetic biology to high schools all across Georgia. But the Trump administration cut the money, claiming it fell under DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. A judge temporarily restored the funding, but Stan Devin told us she's not sure it will extend beyond 2026. What did you think? when your funding got cut?

I was devastated, absolutely devastated. I was angry. And again, I think anybody that's involved in this work at the high school level realizes this is necessary work. In Paris, Lambert presented its work on stage. Caused by the genus Borrelium, Lyme is transmitted through the bites of infected ticks. And behind closed doors, the team,

dressed up to meet a panel of judges answering questions about their lab work and its real-world implications. Is this what you imagined it would be 20 years ago? Hard to imagine this. Stanford professor Drew Endy was one of IGM's founders. Back in the early 2000s, Endy was at MIT, teaching genetic engineering, and his students had a competitive streak.

So we started IGM because the people who wanted to work with us to work with us were the 18-year-olds. IGM thrived as biotech boomed. But Andy warned Congress, America's lead in the field is slipping, while China has made synthetic biology a national priority. How concerned are you that there are not more American participants in IGM? I mean, it's a profound concern. It's urgent that leadership of the next generation of biotechnology

has a strong presence in America and as represented by young American leaders. Endie was encouraged by the work done by the team from Georgia and wanted to know more. Like, how do you deliver it? Yeah, so we wanted deliver it through lipid nanoparticles. Endy echoed what other scientists told us that Lambert's project could be a major scientific breakthrough

if further testing pans out. This year, they appear to have developed a better diagnostic for Lyme disease and anything I've seen before. It's not only applicable to Lyme disease, but anything you could find in your blood. As groundbreaking as their lab work was, of any Carthic knew Lambert was being judged on everything from their website to their software. How do you think you're going to do? I'm hoping we finish top 10, but even that, I don't know. We'll see.

That would be top 10 out of 140 teams. Fingers crossed, arms crossed. Knock on wood. Knock on wood, everything. We're here to celebrate each and every one of you for all of your hard work, creativity, and enthusiasm. On IGM's final day, it was time to see what a year of work had earned Lambert High School. The nominees are... It was a nail biter.

They were nominated in five different categories and kept getting edged out. They didn't win the grand prize. That went to China's great big. Bay. So the winners are... But there was joy. They got to storm the stage for best software tool. Congratulations.

Great job, great job. We thought our project was amazing. Hold on just a minute. Your project was amazing. We're very proud of it, but it's what the judges think at the end of the day. You're in the top ten. Yes. In the world.

Yes. Lambert was the only American school to do. American school to finish in the high school top 10, along with one team from South Korea, one from Taiwan, and seven from China. 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 next summer when the World Cup comes to North America

for the first time in 32 years. The tournament draw will be held Friday in Washington, D.C. 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. Laminemal is not yet licensed to drive, not yet liberal. 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 Laminemal was doing this. A bit of sorcery that helped Spain vault to victory over France, France, and eventually to the European title. And it vaulted Lamin out of adolescence and into 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 alludes 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 consider. come to a game, watch me, and feel better, so they go home happier than they were before. Having recently finished second in the Ballandoor, 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 70-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 weight. He's a skittabug. And like watching a dragonfly, you know?

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 Yamal 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, Lameen 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 and 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 steppe 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.

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 Rokovost. LaMine's 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. Le Mien's prodigious talent was such that he was spotted by Barcelona scouts at age. Six. Soon he was taking the train to practice at La Masa, Barsa's famed youth academy. From the start, he stood out. By 15, he was making his pro debut for Barsa, 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, and 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 better feeling than getting the people who were 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 whose distinct buildings define Barcelona, contorting possibility. Likewise, Lameen 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 Barza from 2004 to 2020. in one 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? No, you can. 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 messy, 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 Joanne Manfort 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, impossibly, it's Laminia Mall. What are the odds that you have Leon O'Messi on the verge of stardom with Laminia Mall, now on the verge of stardom? It's like winning the lottery, no? 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 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 war. Worried about the crushing weight of expectation, you got the wrong guy. There's some noise as well that, boy, life is coming at this kid so fast, and slow down Laminia Mall.

Well, 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. The 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. Me? I look good. Yes. 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, totally. With or without braces, Lameen and his Spanish teammates will be on the short list of World Cup favorites next 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. More with Lamin Yamal. Watch his extended interview. Go to 60 Minutes Overtime.com. Tonight, an update on last season's story from the mountains of Mexico, where we witness the mysterious migration of monarch butterflies.

You can actually hear the sound of butterfly wings. Yeah. Let's just be quiet for a second. Look at that. Look at that up there. Oh my gosh. It's still something of a mystery how these monarchs find their way thousands of miles from the U.S. to Mexico. But now scientists are using tiny solar-powered radio

tags to track individual butterflies, unlocking clues about one of the most remarkable migrations in the natural world. I'm Anderson Cooper. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.