Pau Cubarsí: Spain's Rising Star in World Cup 2024
Luis de la Fuente swore it wasn’t about age. When he left a 17-year-old Pau Cubarsí out of his Euro 2024 squad, the Spain coach insisted the teenager simply had four centre-backs ahead of him “at a higher level”.
That line already feels like it belongs to another era.
Fast forward to this World Cup in North America and there are not many defenders on the planet operating at a higher level than Cubarsí. At 19, he has walked into the biggest tournament in football and played like a man who has been there a decade.
Spain have reached the quarter-finals without conceding a single goal. That is a collective triumph. Mikel Oyarzabal sets the tone by hunting the ball from the front, Rodri screens the defence with his usual authority, and the entire back five has knitted together into a unit that looks almost impossible to prise open.
Marc Cucurella is showing exactly why Real Madrid have just spent €60 million to take him from Chelsea. Unai Simón has answered every question about his status as No.1 with five consecutive clean sheets, keeping David Raya and Joan García on the bench. Aymeric Laporte, at 32, is playing with the calm of a man who has seen every situation the game can throw at him. Pedro Porro, so often erratic for Tottenham, looks reborn in a red shirt.
And yet Cubarsí still stands out.
A teenager who plays like he’s seen it all
Perhaps we shouldn’t be stunned by how at ease he looks. He has been a regular at Barcelona since 17, handed responsibility early and hailed, like Lamine Yamal, as “an era-defining player” by Xavi. Carles Puyol went even further, predicting Cubarsí would be Barça’s first-choice centre-back for the next 15 years.
Cubarsí himself insists he doesn’t feel pressure on the pitch. That may be true. It doesn’t make what he is doing at a World Cup at 19 any less remarkable.
He has barely put a foot wrong defensively. His reading of danger is sharp, his timing in the tackle precise, his positioning mature. Next to him, Laporte has been the ideal guide, the experienced voice in his ear and the steady presence at his shoulder. De la Fuente knows exactly what that partnership gives him.
“At crucial moments, a player like Laporte brings that experience Cuba needs alongside him, and they complement each other fantastically,” the coach said. “We’ve achieved a phenomenal balance in the centre of defence.”
That balance has become the spine of Spain’s campaign.
A playmaker in the back line
Spain do not just defend with Cubarsí. They build with him.
Schooled at La Masia in the art of starting attacks from deep, he has given De la Fuente an extra playmaker at the heart of the back line. Only Rodri has played more passes than Cubarsí at this World Cup so far, a statistic that underlines how central he has become to Spain’s entire game plan.
He breaks lines, draws a press, then slides the ball into midfield or straight into the feet of the forwards. When Spain recycle possession across the back, it is often Cubarsí who decides when to accelerate the move and when to slow it down. That trust is reflected in his minutes: he is one of only four players in the squad to have played every second of the tournament.
While Cubarsí has glided through the group and into the knockouts, the story with Spain’s other teenage phenomenon has been more complicated.
Yamal searching for his spark
Lamine Yamal arrived at this World Cup under a cloud of doubt. A hamstring injury had cut short his 2025-26 season with Barcelona and threatened his place in De la Fuente’s squad altogether. He missed both warm-up matches and only saw 19 minutes in the shock 0-0 draw with Cape Verde.
When he finally started, in the 4-0 demolition of Saudi Arabia in Atlanta, Spain suddenly looked like a different team. Yamal opened the scoring and lit up the right flank, stretching the pitch, demanding the ball, dragging defenders into places they did not want to go. The attack had a new dimension with him on the field.
Since then, the road has been bumpier. His dribbling dazzled again in the round-of-32 thrashing of Austria, a match that put Spain in the history books as the first team since Pelé’s Brazil in 1958 to start two teenagers in a World Cup knockout game. But against Portugal, his old nemesis Nuno Mendes smothered him once more in a tight 1-0 win.
For the most feared winger in the game, the numbers are stark. No assists yet at this World Cup. Only five chances created heading into Friday’s quarter-final against Belgium. By his standards, that is a drought.
Yamal knows it. He is not hiding from it.
“I’m very demanding of myself,” he told Mundo Deportivo. “I’m never satisfied with what I’m doing. Besides that, I just need to keep playing. I was out for almost two months, and it’s not the same as when you’ve already played seven games in a row.
“Keep touching the ball, keep playing, keep adding minutes and, obviously, that big match will come. In the end, people remember these moments, from the round of 16 and the quarter-finals onwards. That’s when I’m most motivated.
“I’ve taken this whole process calmly so I can arrive at this point in good shape. I feel great, eager to show what we are as Spain and what I am.
“I’ve never been the best player in the group stage. The closer the important matches get, the semi-finals or the final, the better I play.”
For Belgium, that is a chilling thought.
Spain already have a back line marshalled by a teenager who looks like he was built for this stage. If Yamal’s own tournament finally catches fire now, in the rounds he believes define careers, De la Fuente will walk into the business end of the World Cup with an era-shaping talent at both ends of the pitch.
Spain rode Yamal’s surge in the decisive moments to win Euro 2024. With Cubarsí now anchoring the defence and Yamal promising he saves his best for the biggest nights, who would bet against history repeating itself on an even grander stage?
