Following a 2-1 victory over England, defending champions Argentina secured their place in the World Cup final against European champions Spain, setting up a generational matchup between Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal.
Although Sunday’s final in New Jersey marks the first time the 39-year-old Argentina veteran and the 19-year-old Spain winger will play against each other, it is not their first actual meeting.
The duo’s history dates back nearly two decades, when a 20-year-old Messi first crossed paths with an infant Yamal during a promotional charity photo shoot in Barcelona.
In late 2007, a charity raffle organized by the Spanish sports newspaper Diario Sport and the United Nations Children’s Fund, known as UNICEF, Yamal’s family earned a spot in a promotional photo shoot with a young Lionel Messi.
The raffle offered local families in Catalonia the opportunity to participate in a promotional calendar photo shoot with professional football players from FC Barcelona. The family of Lamine Yamal, who was only six months old at the time, won one of the raffle slots.
The resulting photo session took place inside the Camp Nou stadium dressing room. A twenty-year-old Lionel Messi, who was then establishing himself as a key player for Barcelona, was paired with the infant Lamine Yamal.
The photo shoot included Messi holding Yamal in a blue plastic baby bathtub. At the time of the shoot, the participants had no connection other than the raffle, and the images were archived after publication in the 2008 charity calendar.
A photo from the shoot went viral after it was posted on Instagram by Yamal’s father, Mounir Nasraoui, along with the caption: “The beginning of two legends” following the 2024 Euros.
Almost 20 years after that photo shoot, the baby from the photo and the legend himself are destined to face off on the international stage.
The connection between the two athletes extends beyond their shared history at Barcelona and will now reach the biggest stage in the sport, the World Cup Final.
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