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YOU MAY HAVE already seen the photo.
It’s gone viral on social media since World Cup defending champions Argentina beat England on Wednesday, cementing their place in Sunday’s final against European champions Spain.
And despite questions being posed by people online, it is very much not AI-generated.
The photo shows a long-haired Lionel Messi at 20 years old. In his fourth year at Barcelona, he was already considered a talented player, but he hadn’t yet cemented himself as arguably the greatest footballer of all time.
He’s giving a baby a bath during a photoshoot. That baby is none other than Lamine Yamal, the teenage football sensation who plays on the right wing at Barcelona, just as Messi did before him.
The two footballers will face each other for the first time on the pitch at the World Cup final in New York this weekend – something no one could have predicted when the photo was taken some 19 years ago.
The image went viral for the first time in 2024, after Yamal’s father shared it on his Instagram with the caption: “The beginning of two legends.”
It was taken in the visitors’ locker room at Barcelona’s Camp Nou in 2007 by Joan Monfort, a freelance photographer for the Associated Press, when Yamal was just five months old.
Monfort told the Associated Press in 2024 that the photoshoot was for a charity calendar that the club was doing with local newspaper Diario Sport on behalf of aid organisation Unicef.
“Unicef did a raffle in the neighbourhood of Rocafonda in Mataró where Lamine’s family lived,” he said.
“They signed up for the raffle to have their picture taken at the Camp Nou with a Barca player. And they won the raffle.”
According to Spain’s national statistics institute, around half of the population of Rocafonda are considered at risk of poverty. Yamal’s family were working class. His father Mounir Nasraoui emigrated there from Morocco. His mother Sheila Ebana came from Equatorial Guinea.
Yamal has spoken about how much his family sacrificed for him to play football when he was younger.
“What my mother and father did, I couldn’t do that for anyone other than my own child. I’ve come to realise that only parents can make that kind of effort,” he told El País last month.
“It’s very hard to get your child into soccer if you don’t have money. When you lack money, doing a lot of things becomes very difficult. Yet my parents managed to do all of that… It’s something I’ll never be able to repay them for.”
Other families who won the raffle to appear in the calendar were paired with other Barcelona players for the photoshoot. It was purely coincidental that Yamal was paired with Messi.
One of the images shows his mother Sheila Ebana helping Messi to bathe her son. Monfort recalled in the interview how the Argentinian was shy during the photo session.
“He was coming out of the locker room and suddenly he finds himself in another locker room with a plastic tub full of water and a baby in it. It was complicated. He didn’t even know how to hold him at first,” he said.
He said he didn’t know it was Yamal in the photos until a friend messaged him when they went viral online, adding: “It’s very exciting to be associated with something that has caused such a sensation.”
Since the photos were taken, Messi has gone on to become the most decorated player in the history of professional football. He’s won the prestigious Ballon d’Or award eight times. He’s also been named the world’s best player by Fifa eight times.
During his 21 years at Barcelona, he scored 672 goals and won 34 trophies, including 10 La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues. He captained Argentina to victory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He now plays for Inter Miami.
Yamal seems to be following in his footsteps. He was scouted at six years old and joined Barcelona’s famed youth academy La Masia, just as Messi had when he was 13.
At just 15, Yamal became the youngest player ever to debut for Barcelona’s first team in April 2023. His start was met with a standing ovation as he was subbed off with five minutes left in the game.
The following year, he helped the club win Spain’s domestic treble: the La Liga title, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de España.
He made his debut for Spain’s senior team at just 16 years old during the country’s Euro 2024 qualifiers against Georgia and Cyprus.
During the tournament, he became the youngest scorer in European Championship history by helping Spain to beat France and reach the final. They went on to win the Euros, and he was named Young Player of the Tournament.
He scored his first World Cup goal on 21 June when Spain defeated Saudi Arabia 4-0. Throughout the tournament, it seems to be his little brother Keyne who has been making more headlines. Several videos of the three year old have gone viral since it kicked off.
At 19 years old, Yamal has already been nominated for the Ballon d’Or twice, finishing runner-up to France’s Ousmane Dembélé in 2025. But he still has some way to go before he achieves Messi status.
The Argentinian, who is now 39, is looking to cap off his career with a second World Cup trophy in a tournament that will likely be his last.
It would be an interesting twist of fate if the baby he held for a charity calendar photoshoot two decades ago – and who is tipped to take over as football’s next global icon – is the one who denies him.
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