Defending champions Argentina will face European champions Spain in the FIFA World Cup final this Sunday in East Rutherford, New Jersey. While Argentina’s 2-1 semifinal victory over England guarantees a thrilling clash, the defining narrative of the match is the surreal reunion between 39-year-old Argentine maestro Lionel Messi and 19-year-old Spanish prodigy Lamine Yamal.
Incredibly their battle on football’s grandest stage will not be their first meeting.
In December 2007, a 20-year-old Messi participated in a charity calendar photoshoot organized by Catalan newspaper Diario Sport and UNICEF at Barcelona's Camp Nou. The six-month-old baby he awkwardly bathed in a plastic tub was none other than Lamine Yamal.
The photograph captured by freelance photographer Joan Monfort went viral during Spain's victorious Euro 2024 campaign after Yamal's father Mounir Nasraoui posted it online with the caption: "The beginning of two legends." Monfort later revealed that the naturally shy Messi struggled to hold the infant crediting Yamal's mother Sheila Ebana for stepping in to soothe the baby.
For 16 years, the image sat in a drawer its monumental significance hidden from the world. Neither the photographer nor the public realized that the young boy in the tub would become the youngest star in Spain's history and the heir apparent to Messi's legacy at Barcelona.
Yamal who just turned 19 on Monday steps onto the pitch to face the very man who seemingly anointed him. While the young winger has already secured LaLiga titles and a European Championship, overcoming the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner in a World Cup final is the ultimate test. As Monfort perfectly summarized the impossible twist of fate: "I didn't believe in destiny before but now I do."
