The 16-year-old star of the Euros doing his homework between games: Lamine Yamal is the wonderkid with a secret - and now expectation is rising

The most striking aspect of seeing teen sensation Lamine Yamal play for the first time is not his technique although he accepts and moves the ball with effortless grace, with eyes up, scanning the changing shapes in the game around him.

Nor his lightning speed off the mark although UEFA's speed gun clocked him at 31.6kmph during his impressive Euros debut and one blistering counterattack in the second half sparked sheer panic in Croatian ranks.

Yamal, who will again be centre of attention when he lines up against Italy in Gelsenkirchen on Thursday night, is supremely gifted and yet the real secret to making this abundance of natural talent work in elite international football at the age of 16 is his temperament. He does the simple things well, a blessing for any coach.

Think back to Cristiano Ronaldo's arrival at Manchester in 2003. At 18, he was desperate to show the world his extravagant talent in a blur of stepover routines, which he edited from his game as he became one of football's truly great goal machines.

Yamal does not seem in the least bit interested in showing off. He is composed, his attitude professional when he could be forgiven for being otherwise. He glided through the game in Berlin rarely making a poor decision. As content to roll a pass back to full back Dani Carvajal or zip a short one inside to Pedri and move for the return as he was to get hold of the ball and run at Josko Gvardiol.

The fact he might do any of these things is what made it difficult for Gvardiol. Yamal is not easy to read. Despite being a predominantly left-footed right winger, he has the confidence to drive down the outside, but he is selective and has the ability on the ball to threaten one action and do another.

The teasing cross for Spain's third against Croatia, swerved in from the right with his left foot for Carvajal had echoes of Chris Waddle at Sheffield Wednesday, unstoppable even when everyone in attendance knew exactly what he wanted to do. This was peak Waddle, however, master of his craft after the years at Marseille. At the age of 16 Waddle had not even joined Tow Law Town.

Yamal's advanced maturity is the most striking aspect of his game. None of this is likely to come as any surprise to those who have traced his extraordinary rise to prominence in Spain.

Yamal hails from Rocafonda, a built-up residential barrio in Mataro, a town of about 120,000 situated 20 miles up the coast north-east of Barcelona.

His father Mounir is from Morocco and his mother Sheila from Equatorial Guinea (he has the flag of each country sewn into his customised boots) and he retains strong links to his home, where his uncle's bakery is now adorned with a graffiti mural of Yamal doing his trademark goal celebration, which involves forming the numbers three, zero and four with his fingers to represent the postcode of Rocafonda 304.

It is a proudly multicultural neighbourhood if deprived with little to shout about until Yamal put it on the map by skittling a cluster of records in Spanish football, since when journalists have flocked regularly to learn his backstory.

How he perfected his skills on a concrete pitch. How he was always shy and reserved but smiling and happy. How he 'does not seek recognition'. How those with an eye for football did not need long to figure out the kid had something special.

One glimpse at seven convinced a local scout to call someone at Barcelona. One trial and he was packing his bag for La Masia, the acclaimed academy where they hothouse their most precious talent. One cameo in the first team and there was no getting him out.

In April last year, Yamal made his debut for Barcelona at 15 years and 290 days, becoming the youngest to play for the club for more than a century.

Inevitably, there were instant comparisons to Lionel Messi, a left-footed forward with prodigious talent which head coach Xavi both invited and resisted, just as he warned against overhype and burnout and continued picking him because, let's face it, managers will pick players most likely to win them games.

Yamal had made 50 appearances last season for his club, almost 3,000 minutes, sparking concern among those who have seen Ansu Fati, Gavi and Pedri all hit by injury problems once exposed to a heavy workload at an elite level as teenagers.

Still, with Morocco circling, Luis de la Fuente handed him a Spain debut in September, the youngest footballer to represent the country at 16 and 57 days, scoring on his debut against Georgia.

'Touched by a magic wand,' was De La Fuente's assessment, which has stuck because it sums it all up so beautifully. There is something magical about him. There was on Saturday as another challenge was thrown his way without hesitation.

Yamal rose to it without fuss and more challenges will come and they are sure to be tougher because once identified as a serious danger there will be hours spent by video analysis teams poring over replays to stop him.

'Yamal receives the ball high up the pitch and gets the ball into feet,' said Italy boss Luciano Spalletti ahead of the Group B game tonight. 'The two wingers like to be one-v-one, and they get from back to front very quickly.

'One issue when we are dominating proceedings is to be in the correct position on the turnover because they are absolutely deadly on the counterattack.'

Jorge Mendes did not waste any time swooping in to sign him up from his former agent Ivan de la Pena, a former Spain international. Money-making opportunities bring another type of pressure, the pressure to cash-in and make hay while the sun shines.

With fame and fortune comes another series of challenges, although graduates of La Masia seem better adjusted than most to all that.

Indeed, Yamal admitted at the start of the tournament that he intends to focus on his studies during downtime while at the Euros. ‘I brought my homework here because I’m in the 4th year,’ he said. ‘I have online classes too and those are going fine. I hope the teacher doesn’t get mad at me.’

Then there are the physical tests which come from playing elite men’s football in a young body still developing. Yamal said he gained eight kilos in weight and grew two centimetres over the course of last season.

There are many moving parts to survive if Yamal is to thrive and produce the stellar career which seems inevitable when we see him step so coolly onto a stage like Euro 2024. Nothing is certain but his ability is there for all to see, and his attitude seems to be sound.

There’s no harm in being excited about what happens next.