{"id":833567,"date":"2026-03-18T08:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T08:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/833567\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T08:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T08:19:16","slug":"barcelona-v-newcastle-the-anti-lamine-yanal-backed-to-be-one-of-the-best-in-world-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/833567\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona v Newcastle: The anti-Lamine Yanal backed to be one of the best in world"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The stars appear to be aligning for both club and country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The World Cup is a &#8220;motivating factor&#8221; for Hall, and there remain question marks surrounding just who will line up in his position for England this summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hall, who has won two caps for his country, has yet to earn a call-up under Thomas Tuchel following an injury-disrupted period in his fledgling career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But that will surely change when the England manager announces his squad for the friendlies against Uruguay and Japan on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tuchel certainly knows him well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The England boss handed Hall his debut at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chelsea<\/a> at the age of just 17 in 2022, and has watched the left-back play against his former club and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-city\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Manchester City<\/a> this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hall was a highly-rated talent at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chelsea<\/a>, but he has come a long way since Tuchel first trialled him in a back three against Chesterfield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Arno Michels, Tuchel&#8217;s long-serving assistant at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chelsea<\/a>, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain, knows that better than most.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s incredible to see how Lewis has developed &#8211; and he&#8217;s still only 21,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Yet Hall will not be getting carried away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hall, by his nature, is a level-headed character, who does not tend to look beyond the next game, and has been kept grounded by a tight-knit family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has never lost touch with his roots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The defender still has a small circle of close friends and has returned to Binfield, where it all started, in each of the past three summers to hand out trophies and medals at the annual junior football tournament he once played in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hall has even been back to represent his local cricket club as relatively recently as 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The left-back has not forgotten those who have helped him along the way, either, such as Mark Robinson, his former manager with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chelsea<\/a>&#8216;s under-23s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hall even jumped into the stands to catch up with Robinson after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Newcastle<\/a>&#8216;s 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge at the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s lots more to come because Lewis is a very humble lad,&#8221; Robinson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I can&#8217;t see that ever changing. You have got to keep learning, keep improving, and he will do that.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stars appear to be aligning for both club and country. The World Cup is a &#8220;motivating factor&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-833567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116249202695797195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}