Gary Lineker: ‘Lamine Yamal blows my mind. I’ve not seen anything like this’

The former striker on what he was doing at 16, his respect for Harry Kane and why England are a bit like Real Madrid

WELL IMPRESSED: Former England striker Gary Lineker. Pic: Marc Atkins/Getty Images

Ihadn’t reached puberty yet,” Gary Lineker says, cracking up. Then he stops and adds: “It’s true, I’m not lying. I used to hide in the showers”. 

Talk has turned, inevitably, to Lamine Yamal, the school kid who stands before England’s hopes of winning a first trophy since 1966, what their former captain calls his “lifetime’s ambition” as a player and broadcaster, and has everyone asking the same question: what were you doing at 16? “I had just joined Leicester City as an apprentice,” Lineker recalls.