Despite a two-decade age difference, Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal are set to go head to head on Sunday as Argentina and Spain contest the FIFA World Cup 2026 final in what promises to be a clash of the titans.
Although it will be the first time that they meet on the pitch, their paths have crossed before. Almost 20 years ago, an extraordinary – some might say prophetic – sequence of events resulted in a photo of a 19-year-old Messi bathing a three-month-old Yamal. The scene almost resembled a baptism or a blessing.
“It was no coincidence, it was a miracle,” Joan Monfort, the man responsible for the photo, told FIFA. Back in 2006, Catalan newspaper SPORT and Barcelona’s foundation teamed up to publish a calendar featuring Barça players posing with children as part of an annual charity drive to raise funds for Unicef.
“The first edition was madness. By the time we’d received all the approvals, we only had four days to shoot. We barely slept. We worked at breakneck speed and shot photos of the players with children of our family and friends. After that first calendar, we decided the photos needed to be more inclusive and representative of the Catalan population,” remembered Oriol Canals, then working in the daily paper’s marketing department.
Yamal’s family participated in a Unicef community project in the Rocafonda neighbourhood of Mataro and won a raffle organised by the non-governmental organisation for their new-born to appear in a photograph with a Barcelona squad member for the calendar's 2008 edition. The player in question might have anyone from Eric Abidal to Xavi Hernandez via Ronaldinho, Henry, Iniesta, Puyol, Valdes and the rest... but destiny decided it would be Messi.
Yamal was born on Friday, 13 July 2007. Three and a half months later, on Wednesday, 31 October, his mother, Sheila, carried him into the away dressing room at Camp Nou for the eagerly anticipated photo shoot, which lasted around half an hour. “Messi was as stiff as a broom. I suppose that was because he’d never held a baby in his life,” said Canals. “Messi was 19 and even shyer and more introverted back then,” commented Monfort, recalling the look of terror on the Argentine’s face when he saw the set-up.
If it was a “difficult” photo to take, the photographer used a plastic duck from his daughter’s collection to ease the tension and get the bundle of joy to smile. Likewise, the tub in which Yamal bathed and the towel used to dry him were borrowed from home.
The resulting snap lay forgotten for years, until Yamal’s father, Mounir, dusted off the family photo album and shared it on social media in 2024, days before the fledgling flanker was crowned a European champion at UEFA EURO 2024. The picture went viral and found its way back into Canals and Monfort’s lives. The pair had no idea what had become of the child who posed alongside the Argentina star all those years ago.
“It’s incredible. It’s one of those gifts that life hands you. It’d be like Michael Jordan bathing LeBron James. It’s absolutely unbelievable; totally crazy. Initially, people asked if it was AI. It’s out of this world. It’s a beautiful and incredible story,” asserted Canals.
“That photo is etched in my soul. It was a miracle back then and continues to be 20 years on. It was like writing history before it happened. Nobody could have imagined that things would pan out as they have. Messi has gone on to become one of the top three athletes in history, and Lamine was a standout talent at 16, won the EURO at 17 and is going to compete against Messi in a World Cup final at 19. It’s extraordinary,” declared Monfort.
“I’ve never been religious, but I’m starting to believe that there’s something greater than us out there. I don’t know what it is or where it comes from, but there has to be something because the way things have fallen into place is unexplainable and magical. And to think they are going to line up in a World Cup final, one at 39 and the other aged 19, really is the cherry on the top,” Monfort concluded.
Courtesy: FIFA