Messi on the viral photograph with baby Yamal: "It is crazy", and now the World Cup final awaits them
Lionel Messi has for the first time responded at greater length to the photograph taken in 2007 in which the then-young Barcelona footballer is holding and bathing baby Lamine Yamal. The scene, which for almost two decades was merely part of a charity calendar, has once again gone globally viral ahead of the 2026 World Cup final, in which Argentina and Spain will meet on July 19 in New Jersey. Messi will lead the reigning world champions in that match, while Yamal, now a 19-year-old Barcelona winger, is one of the most important players for the European champions.
Speaking on July 17 at a public event in New York, Messi said that the entire story seemed unbelievable to him. "That photograph with Lamine is crazy", the Argentine captain said, according to reports by the Associated Press and Spanish media. He recalled that Yamal was a baby when the photograph was taken and that no one could have imagined that their paths would cross again precisely in the final of the biggest international football competition. Messi called the young Spaniard one of the best players in the world and emphasised that almost his entire career still lies ahead of him.
The photograph has therefore acquired a meaning it did not possess when it was created. What was conceived in 2007 as a cheerful scene for a charity campaign is now interpreted as a rare symbol of continuity, legacy and generational change in football. On one side is Messi, a player whose career has defined more than two decades of world football, and on the other is Yamal, a footballer who became an important figure for Barcelona and the Spanish national team while still a teenager. Their first shared image is now the prelude to a match in which they will fight for the same trophy.
A charity photo shoot at Camp Nou brought two families together
The photograph was taken in late 2007 by Catalan photojournalist Joan Monfort as part of a charity calendar prepared by the sports newspaper Sport in cooperation with UNICEF. The concept of the project was simple: Barcelona footballers posed with children from local families, while the revenue and attention associated with the calendar were directed towards a humanitarian cause. Lamine Yamal's parents entered their son into a draw to participate, and the family was then randomly paired with one of Barcelona's players.
That player was Messi, then a 20-year-old Argentine talent who was already an important member of Barcelona's first team but had not yet attained the status of a global sporting icon that he would acquire in the years following the shoot. Yamal was an infant, and his mother, Sheila Ebana, also appears in some of the photographs. The shoot took place inside the Camp Nou stadium, and Monfort devised a scene involving a small plastic bathtub, water, soap suds and a rubber duck.
The photographer later explained that he had imagined the bathtub scene while bathing his own daughter the previous evening. According to his account to El País and the Associated Press, Messi was extremely reserved at the time and was not accustomed to holding a baby, which meant that the start of the shoot was not entirely straightforward. Nevertheless, he behaved patiently and professionally, and the atmosphere relaxed when the rubber toy was introduced into the frame. A series of photographs was created in which Messi supports Yamal, helps bathe him and smiles beside the child who, many years later, would become his symbolic successor at Barcelona.
At the time the photograph was taken, no one involved in the project attributed any particular historical significance to it. Monfort photographed numerous sporting events and portraits, and the scene was merely one piece of material for the calendar. There was no way to predict that the child from a local family would become a professional footballer, much less that he would reach international level and one day play against Messi in a World Cup final.
The photograph was forgotten for years
The images remained outside the wider public eye for more than fifteen years. They resurfaced during the 2024 European Championship, when Yamal's father, Mounir Nasraoui, posted one of the photographs on social media with the message "the beginning of two legends". The post was soon shared by media outlets and users of social platforms, and the identity of the baby in the photograph generated enormous interest at precisely the moment when Yamal was becoming one of the greatest discoveries in European football.
The timing of the photograph's rediscovery was crucial to its viral impact. At the 2024 European Championship, Yamal became the youngest player ever to appear at the final tournament and then the youngest goalscorer in the competition's history. UEFA states that he scored in the semi-final against France at the age of 16 years and 362 days, while he appeared in the final against England one day after his 17th birthday. Spain won the title, and Yamal was named the tournament's best young player.
The photograph with Messi then offered an almost perfect visual story for his rapid rise. For years, Messi had been the most recognisable product of Barcelona's academy and the club's central figure, while Yamal made his first-team debut as a 15-year-old and very quickly assumed a level of responsibility rarely entrusted to players of his age. Both are left-footed, both most often attacked from the right side in the early stages of their careers, and both passed through Barcelona's development system, so comparisons became inevitable.
Nevertheless, the photograph itself was not created as a promotional announcement of a future career or as a planned connection between two talents. It is precisely the coincidence that gives it its power. The family was selected in a draw, Messi was one of the players involved in the calendar, and Monfort's creative idea produced an image that only later became a cultural phenomenon. Ahead of the final, the photographer told the Associated Press that the current sequence of events surpassed anything that could be written as a film screenplay.
Messi and Yamal represent two phases of Barcelona's history
Messi's connection with Barcelona is far deeper than club statistics. He developed at the club from the youth categories, became the leading goalscorer in its history and won the greatest domestic and international trophies. He left in 2021 under circumstances marked by the club's financial problems, and his departure left a sporting and emotional void that Barcelona was unable to fill easily for years.
Yamal entered the first team in 2023, precisely during a period in which the club was searching for a new generation of players to carry the team. His development is not a copy of Messi's path, nor can it be assumed that he will repeat the career of the Argentine great, but the similarities were visible enough to fuel expectations. Ahead of the final, El País also highlighted symbolic connections: both wore the number 19 during the early stages of their careers, and Yamal later took over Barcelona's number ten, a number that had for years been inseparably associated with Messi.
Messi made it clear that he follows Yamal's performances because he still feels a strong emotional attachment to Barcelona. He said that he wishes the young player well and that his progress would also be good for the club he loves. Such a message goes beyond the usual compliment to an opponent: it comes from the footballer against whom almost every exceptionally talented attacker emerging from Barcelona's academy is measured.
At the same time, Messi did not accept the simplified narrative according to which the final is merely a personal duel between two players. He emphasised that Spain has a very high-quality team, but also that Argentina possesses its own strengths. He added that his national team would do everything to prevent Yamal from winning the title in this particular final. The praise therefore remained separate from competitive intent: personal respect does not change the fact that they will fight for opposing objectives on the pitch.
The final brings together the reigning world and European champions
Argentina enter the final as the holders of the title won in 2022, while Spain are the reigning European champions. According to Associated Press data ahead of the match, the Argentine national team won all seven of its matches at the tournament and scored 19 goals, more than any other team. Spain reached the final with six victories and one draw, conceding only one goal, which makes them by far the most solid defensive side in the competition.
The routes to the final further intensified the contrast in styles. Spain defeated France 2-0 in the semi-final through disciplined defending and control of space against an attack led by Kylian Mbappé. Yamal did not score, but he won the penalty from which Mikel Oyarzabal gave Spain the lead, according to the Associated Press. A day later, Argentina trailed England until the 85th minute before turning the result around to win 2-1 through goals from Enzo Fernández and Lautaro Martínez. Messi was involved in the build-up to both late goals.
The final will be played at the stadium FIFA calls New York New Jersey Stadium during the tournament, in East Rutherford in the US state of New Jersey. The match is scheduled for Sunday, July 19, 2026. Argentina are attempting to become the first national team since Brazil in 1958 and 1962 to win the World Cup twice in succession. Spain, champions in 2010, are seeking their second world title.
For Messi, another victory would extend a series of historic achievements in the closing stage of his career. For Yamal, winning the world title at the age of 19 would represent another exceptionally early peak following the European crown of 2024. Such context further explains why a simple photograph from Barcelona has once again become so important: the final connects not only two players but also two national teams entering the match as holders of the most recent major international titles.
A "full-circle" moment that football can rarely offer
In public interpretations, the photograph is often described as a "blessing", the passing of the torch or proof that Yamal was destined to become Messi's successor. Such formulations belong to the symbolic and fan-oriented level of the story, not to the facts. What can be confirmed is a series of unusual coincidences: a humanitarian project randomly brought together two future professionals, both became stars of the same club, and almost 19 years later they are taking the field as opponents in a World Cup final.
Monfort said that he is not inclined to believe in predestination, but that the sequence of events had forced him to reconsider his own scepticism. His reaction sums up the reason why the photograph transcended the boundaries of a sporting news story. It works even without knowledge of all the results, records and tactical details: a young Messi is holding a child who will grow into a player capable of opposing him on the biggest stage.
At the same time, the photograph is a reminder of how quickly footballing time changes. When the image was created, Messi was at the beginning of his rise and had yet to win his greatest trophies. Today, he enters the final as a 39-year-old captain, a world champion and the central figure of the Argentine team. Yamal was then a child with no connection whatsoever to professional sport, and he is now a key player for a national team that has progressed from a European final to a World Cup final within two years.
Their story is therefore important not merely as a sentimental curiosity. It demonstrates how a photograph can later become a document of an era and acquire a meaning that the creator, participants and audience could not have imagined at the moment it was taken. In Sunday's final, Messi and Yamal will share the pitch in an official match for the first time, but not as mentor and successor; instead, they will do so as opponents. After the final whistle, only one of them will lift the trophy, while the image from 2007, regardless of the result, will remain one of the most unusual visual records in the history of modern football.
Sources:
- Associated Press - story about the creation of the photograph, Lionel Messi's statements and the testimony of photographer Joan Monfort (link)
- Associated Press - preview of the final between Argentina and Spain, the national teams' routes to the match and tournament data (link)
- Associated Press - Messi's address in New York and his reaction to the viral photograph ahead of the final (link)
- El País - details of the 2007 charity photo shoot, the role of the Yamal family and the symbolism of the photograph (link)
- UEFA - official data on Spain at Euro 2024 and Lamine Yamal's records (link)
- FC Barcelona - official overview of Messi's club career, records and trophies (link)