Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal Set For World Cup Showdown 19 Years After First Meeting [Photos]

Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal will share the biggest stage in football for the first time when Argentina face Spain in Sunday’s World Cup final.

Messi, now 39, and Yamal, who turned 19 on Monday, are separated by 20 years, yet both have become defining figures for Barcelona. While one built a legacy as the club’s greatest player, the other is widely seen as the brightest talent to inherit that mantle.

Long before they became World Cup finalists, the pair unknowingly met in Barcelona’s dressing room at Camp Nou in 2007.

A young Messi, then 20 and still wearing Barcelona’s No. 19 shirt, took part in a charity photoshoot organised by the club, Unicef and Catalan newspaper Sport. One of the babies selected through a raffle was five-month-old Lamine Yamal.

Photographer Joan Monfort captured the now-famous images of Messi cradling and bathing the infant, photographs that resurfaced during Spain’s victorious Euro 2024 campaign after Yamal’s father shared one online with the caption: “The beginning of two legends”.

“It is a true miracle of destiny,” Monfort told BBC Sport.

“It is serendipity when you find something extra special, so much bigger than you ever thought.

“If you wrote this in a film, it would not seem possible.”

Monfort admitted he had no idea who the baby was until years later.

“I had no idea it was Yamal in the photo until one of my friends called me in 2024 and told me his father had posted it to Instagram,” he said.

“Messi is a really introverted guy, timid. He came into the dressing room and suddenly had to take these photos with a baby, not even a kid, a proper baby and his face changed like he had no idea what to do!

“It is difficult for a young man, but Lamine was a very happy, smiley baby. His mum Sheila helped us; she was a young girl, and they were a very poor family, but they were very nice to work with.

“Messi was always a professional in these kinds of things, and he adapted to the situation very quickly.”

Yamal’s journey from humble beginnings to the World Cup final has been equally compelling.

Born to Moroccan-born Mounir Nasraoui and Sheila Ebana, who is from Equatorial Guinea, he grew up in Rocafonda, a working-class district of Mataro, north of Barcelona. His first names, Lamine Yamal, honour two people who helped his family financially during difficult times.

The teenager often celebrates goals by making a 3-0-4 gesture with his fingers, a tribute to Rocafonda’s postcode.

“What my mother has done, what my father has done, I couldn’t have done that for anyone who is not my child,” Yamal told El País earlier in the tournament.

“If you don’t have money, it’s very hard to help your child play football. And my parents managed to make all that happen. It’s something I’ll never be able to repay them for.”

Yamal’s rise has been breathtaking. By his 19th birthday, he had already scored 56 career goals, won three La Liga titles, lifted the Copa del Rey and helped Spain claim the Euro 2024 crown.

Messi, by the same age, had won La Liga and the Champions League once and scored 11 senior goals before going on to become one of football’s greatest players.

For Monfort, Sunday’s final feels like the perfect ending to a story he never imagined would unfold.

“I think we are closing the cycle of their story,” he said. “It is a happy ending.

“I am a fan of Barcelona, and I think for Messi it’s perfect if he can finish his career winning the World Cup for the second time. I think he deserves it.

“And for Lamine, he has a lot of time to win trophies like the World Cup. But Spain and Lamine are arriving at a good moment, and if he wins it now, it would be worth more than his other titles.

“It is very difficult for me. My heart is breaking in two pieces.”