7/6/2025–|Last update: 23:47 (Mecca time)
Barcelona– An hour of time separating the loud Barcelona Center and Rakavonda neighborhood, which is located in the north within the city of Mattaru, that quiet, modest neighborhood that came out of its alleys “Lam Jamp“The most attractive football talent is the lights at the moment.
In the “El Cordypes” café, Mounir Nasrawi used to have a cup of coffee, while his young son, Lamin Jamal, was having fun around the cafe, waiting enthusiastically to accompany him to the Barcelona Academy “Lamasia”.
The owner of the café and family friend Carlos Sirano talks to Al -Jazeera Net about these moments, and he says that he did not imagine that this 5 -year -old and bustle child in the cafe will become a star in Barcelona, and he has not yet reached the age of 18.
In appreciation of the beautiful moments of Jamal and his father in the café, Sirano got a shirt bearing the number 39, and he played the beauty of his first match in the “Barca” squad, and his father said to him at the time, “I want you to get it because he is the first shirt wearing my son, this shirt will become famous over time.”
Al -Jazeera Net toured the streets of Rakavonda neighborhood, where Jamal grew up in front of his father’s eyes, his grandfather and his cousins and his neighbors, and his skills became the attention of everyone in the neighborhood square, which was not forgotten in the midst of his fame with Barcelona and his celebration of goals by referring to his hands to the number 304, which is the postal symbol of Raavonda.
The first stadium
After eating lunch and nap, the daily meeting between the children and youth of the neighborhood is to play football on a simple concrete stadium that mediates the area between a playing area for children and a large herbal football field for Rakavonda Club, those responsible for Al Jazeera Net say that they were wishing that Lamine had affiliated with them one day.
Away from the sun’s rays and on the concrete stands, a group of adolescents started gathering pending the rest, so Al -Jazeera Net initiated them by asking if one of them had previously met their neighborhood’s son or played with him in this square and this modest stadium that witnessed the goals of the first Jamal Jamal.
Ryan Mohamedi, 21, says Jamal “was a humble boy and a modest family, and he always came to play with us here every day.”
He added that “he was only thinking about football since he was young, at the age of 8 or 9 years old, who was playing with people in their 20 years of age, was the best since eternity.”
In response to the question of “Al -Jazeera Net” about his feelings now towards his friend, he says, “I also love football a lot since my childhood and I love watching matches and now I am proud of beauty because it has become one of the best players in the world.”
Muhammadi recalls some of his memories with Lamin, and he says that his friend was anger when he lost in front of others .. He did not like the loss, he always wanted to win and he was very proud of his level since his childhood, “according to his description.
Jaber Al -Hamedi, 28, agrees with this description, and he adds, speaking about the characteristics of Lamine, that “he was very shy, he was not talking a lot, he always formed his team and we were playing against him, sometimes he wins, but sometimes he lost, and then he was leaving very angry.”
District 304
According to the data of the Mattaro City Council in 2023, it is among about 130,000 people living in the city, more than 11 thousand and 730 people live in the Rakavonda neighborhood, among them more than 5,400 people of foreign origin, meaning that the percentage of foreign population exceeds 46%, which is much higher than the general average of the foreign population in Barcelona, which is about 24%.
“The neighborhood appears from the outside dangerous or bad,” Al -Hamedi says, speaking about the repeated stereotype of Rakavonda, but he continues, explaining that the matter differs when looking at the neighborhood from the inside, as it is “a very humble neighborhood inhabited by diligent people, especially workers and workers in fields and orchards, and many elderly people.”
He added, “The neighborhood seems very modest because there are no wealthy people who have a lot of money, but people who earn a very little salary monthly, and they have two or three children, they move between the school, the house and the garden here and nothing else, it is a very model neighborhood in these areas”, describing people as loved and very vocal.
Regarding the passion for football spread among the neighborhood, Al -Hamidi confirms that the culture of football is prevalent here, and in other similar neighborhoods in the city of Mattaru and in Barcelona in general, where children have been practicing it since childhood, or they are involved in the practice of another sport.
Certain and interdependence
This opinion is not limited to young people only, as the neighborhood that was established in the 1960s to accommodate the population from southern Spain has increased its popularity in the nineties with the arrival of immigrants, and it is inhabited by various communities in the forefront of which is the Moroccan to which Tariq Al -Rahmouni (50 years) belongs, who is a resident of the neighborhood for more than 20 years.
Al -Rahmouni recalls how Lamin Jamal was drawing attention to his football skills, gentleness of his creation and the love of the neighborhood of the neighborhood, which is known.
Al-Rahmouni asserts that Jamal’s keenness to draw the number 304 with his fingers- Rakavonda Al-Buraidi neighborhood- contributed greatly to highlighting the neighborhood, which suffers from some repeated social problems, “but it does not reach the extent that it is considered marginalized, so Flamin reminds him of the door of love and fulfillment of his family in it,” he says.
It is noteworthy that Abdel -Khaleq Nasrawi, the uncle of the Barcelona star, owns a café in the neighborhood, in which she is filled with pictures of Jamal Jamal and the Barcelona team, but he was kept talking to Al -Jazeera Net.
This appears to be the case of the rest of the family, which is also witnessing interest from the media, especially after the attention of them and the neighborhood in August 2024, when the father of the Secretary Jamal was stabbed after a quarrel between him and a group of neighborhood residents.