When Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal line up against each other in the World Cup final on Sunday, it will mark the closing of an incredible full-circle moment that has been two decades in the making.
In 2007, a 20-year-old Messi and Yamal, born in July of that year, posed together in a photo organised by UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), the global agency which provides humanitarian and development support to children and mothers worldwide.
Yamal’s family had entered and won a raffle to pose with a Barcelona player for a 2008 UNICEF calendar.
In one photo from the shoot, Messi is seen helping Yamal’s mother, Sheila Ebana, give the smiling five-month-old boy a bath in a blue plastic tub.
“The photographer, Joan Monfort, has said that Lamine Yamal stole Messi’s heart because he was always smiling,” UNICEF Catalan’s Laia Ruich said on the organisation’s website.
Fast forward nearly 20 years, and now Messi and Yamal are sharing football’s greatest stage.
Spain star Yamal, the teenage prodigy who has followed in Messi’s footsteps at Barcelona, has only just turned 19.
Argentina captain Messi, 39, will be playing in his third World Cup final in what is almost certainly likely to be his last appearance in the tournament.
“That photo is incredible,” Messi said at a fan event in Manhattan on Friday.
“I took a picture with him when he was a baby … the fact that we’re both playing in the World Cup now is crazy.”
Messi and Yamal’s first meeting
Messi said while he has a soft spot for Yamal given his association with his former club Barcelona, it will not detract him from the task in hand on Sunday — beating Spain.
