Nearly two decades before Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal became opponents on soccer’s biggest stage, they shared a bathtub.
Freelance photographer Joan Monfort snapped the pair in 2007 for a charity calendar, capturing a teenage Messi washing a squirming baby boy with soap-covered hands. At the time, it was just another assignment. Today, it’s arguably the most-shared image of the entire World Cup because that baby grew up to be Lamine Yamal, and this Sunday he’ll line up against Messi in the final.
“I have never been a believer or thought that anything was destined to occur, but I am beginning to have my doubts,” Monfort told The Associated Press from Barcelona. “This is beyond all reasonable explanations.”
How the Messi Yamal Baby Photo Came Together
Monfort, who shoots for the AP, took the picture as part of a joint charity project between the Barcelona newspaper Sport and UNICEF. The setup involved a raffle: families around Barcelona entered for a chance to be photographed with club players for the calendar.
Yamal’s mother won that raffle in the town of Mataró. Her infant son was paired, by pure chance, with a young Argentine winger who was still years away from global superstardom. Fifteen years later, that baby would break into Barcelona’s first team. Messi, meanwhile, left the club in tears in 2021 amid its financial collapse.
Now the two paths converge in a World Cup final, 19-year-old Yamal against a Messi twenty years his senior.
- 2007: Messi, 20, bathes baby Yamal for a UNICEF charity calendar
- 2021: Messi departs Barcelona
- 2023: Yamal breaks through as a first-team regular
- Sunday: The pair meet as rivals in soccer’s biggest match
“He is one of the best players in the world right now, so I wish him the best,” Messi said Friday. “That picture, it was crazy. Him as a baby, and now we are facing each other. I just wish him the best of luck.”
Why the Messi Yamal World Cup Final Photo Went Viral
The image itself isn’t new to the internet, Yamal’s father first posted it during the 2024 European Championship, when a teenage Yamal helped Spain lift the title. It circulated widely then, but Monfort says nothing compares to the current wave of attention.
“This has exploded all over the world, and the fact that the final is in the U.S. has given it the extra push,” he said. “It is better than any film script.”
Monfort said requests for the photo have poured in from major outlets, while unauthorized copies spread across social platforms without credit or payment to him.
Spain midfielder Mikel Merino described his own reaction to seeing it for the first time.
“I thought it was AI and that it wasn’t even real,” Merino said Friday. “It’s unbelievable that two of the best players to have played the game share a picture like that.”
A Divided City Ahead of Argentina vs. Spain
Barcelona is a city split down the middle this weekend. It’s common to spot kids wearing both Yamal’s Spain jersey and any of Messi’s old Barcelona shirts on the same street corner.
Monfort, 58, is weighing whether to travel to New Jersey for the match, but says his loyalties are hopelessly torn either way.
“My heart is split. I don’t know if I want Messi or Yamal to win,” said the lifelong Barcelona fan. He described an “everlasting love” for Messi while also praising Yamal, whose parents are from Morocco and Equatorial Guinea, for representing a new, more diverse Spain.
“Maybe they can both win,” Monfort added. “I wouldn’t rule it out after everything we have seen.”
