The images have been taken in 2007 throughout a charity calendar shoot organized by UNICEF, FC Barcelona.
MIAMI: Lionel Messi is about for a unprecedented FIFA World Cup remaining after practically two-decade-old photographs resurfaced displaying him holding and bathing an toddler Lamine Yamal, who’s now anticipated to line up in opposition to the Argentine captain on soccer’s greatest stage.
The images have been taken in 2007 throughout a charity calendar shoot organized by UNICEF, FC Barcelona, and an area Barcelona newspaper.
Em 2007, um fotografia español tirou uma
foto que niemenu deu importamento.Messi was 19 years outdated, beginning at Barcelona.
Yamal tinha 5 meses de vida, chosho no
sorteio de um calendar beneficente.Ninguém sabia que aquele bebé seria o outro
protagonist da remaining da Copa… pic.twitter.com/9Y70od9mOm— Britinho edições (@andersbrito) July 16, 2026
Then simply six months outdated, Yamal was chosen by lottery to participate within the picture session, the place a 20-year-old Messi posed with the newborn in a plastic bathtub.
Photographer Joan Monfort recalled that Messi, nonetheless early in his skilled profession, was shy and initially uncertain tips on how to maintain the toddler.
After the shoot, a colleague jokingly remarked that Messi had “blessed” the kid, a remark that has gained new significance as Yamal has emerged as certainly one of world soccer’s brightest younger stars.
Now, 19 years later, the viral photographs have captured followers’ creativeness forward of Sunday’s FIFA World Cup remaining between Argentina and Spain, the place Messi and Yamal are anticipated to face one another for the primary time on the game’s grandest stage.
Some tales come full circle. pic.twitter.com/HcNMnxgGZF
— FOX Sports activities (@FOXSports) July 15, 2026
Soccer supporters have described the outstanding story as a symbolic assembly of two generations, with one of many sport’s greatest-ever gamers taking up certainly one of its most promising new skills.
