Read for 2 minutesUpdated: 16 July 2026 02:08 PM IST
This photo was taken in the Barcelona dressing room in late 2007. Lionel Messi, 20, with a shy smile and a head of intact curls, held the six-month-old baby in a blue plastic bathtub. In that fleeting moment, neither knew that the world would one day look back on that image and see the beginning of something extraordinary.
Almost two decades later, that baby, Lamine Yamal, will face Messi in the FIFA World Cup 2026 final in New Jersey on Sunday, which seems to have been written by the football gods.
Defending champions Argentina sealed their place in the title race with a 2-1 win over England, setting up a match against reigning European champions Spain. This will be the first time Messi and Yamal will play against each other, but their story begins long before they hit the ball on the world’s biggest stage. Meanwhile, Spain beat pre-event favorites France 2-0 in the semi-finals thanks to goals from Mikel Oyarzabal and Pedro Porro.
Their connection likely originated from a charity raffle organized by a Spanish newspaper Diario Sport and UNICEF in 2007. Local families from Catalonia were given the opportunity to participate in a promotional calendar photo shoot with FC Barcelona players. Yamal’s family won a slot.
The shoot took place in the Camp Nou dressing room. Messi, a rising star at Barcelona, was paired with the infant Yamal. The resulting image, of Messi holding Yama in a plastic bathtub, was published in a 2008 charity calendar and largely forgotten.
That changed during the 2024 European Championships, when Yamal’s father, Mounir Nasraoui, posted a photo on Instagram with the caption: “The beginning of two giants.”
Now, nearly 20 years after that photo shoot, the baby in the picture and the legend himself are facing each other on football’s biggest stage.