Certainly one of soccer’s most talked-about images has taken on new that means.
Forward of Sunday’s extremely anticipated FIFA World Cup Closing between Argentina and Spain, a resurfaced {photograph} of Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal has develop into a defining visible of a exceptional full-circle second.
The picture has gone viral after Argentina’s win towards England on Wednesday, and options the Argentine legend with Spain’s breakout soccer star as an toddler. Within the picture, Messi seems to be giving child Yamal a shower.
20-year-old soccer star Lionel Messi helps to wash Lamine Yamal, who was merely six months outdated on the time, throughout a photograph session in Sept. 2007
(AP Picture/Joan Monfort)
Lamal’s father Mounir Nasraoui beforehand shared a behind-the-scenes snapshot from what seems to be the now-famous picture shoot on Instagram again in 2024.
Photographed by Joan Monfort in 2007, the picture was a part of a charity calendar to learn UNICEF and was a collaboration with the FC Barcelona Basis. The calendar was launched in 2008, and 50% of gross sales went to tasks selling kids’s rights.
Different soccer gamers who took half within the calendar included Xavi Hernández, Ronaldinho Gaucho, Carles Puyol and Samuel Eto’o.
Monfort advised ESPN in 2024 that every month of the calendar featured a footballer with a toddler from Catalonia, Spain. Mother and father might have their kids take part by getting into a draw.
20-year-old soccer star Lionel Messi helps to wash Lamine Yamal, who was merely six months outdated on the time with Yamal’s mom Sheila Ebana throughout a photograph session in Sept. 2007
(AP Picture/Joan Monfort)
“The target was to provide visibility to a sequence of social issues confronted by youngsters and their households,” Monfort advised ESPN. “It was coming as much as Christmas, and we wished to transmit humanity, each by the children and the gamers. We tried to discover a approach of them interacting, laughing, as relaxed as attainable.”
The photographer mentioned that Messi and Yamal had been photographed for the month of January. Monfort mentioned it was his thought to {photograph} Messi bathing child Yamal, saying he thought it could be a great way for them to work together. He added that Yamal’s mom helped with the method to get the photographs.
The {photograph} was lengthy forgotten till Nasraoui shared it on Instagram in July 2024.
“The start of two legends ❤️,” he captioned the put up on the time.
Yamal’s path to fame has been remarkably just like Messi’s within the years because the {photograph} was taken: He got here up by FC Barcelona’s famed youth academy, La Masia, earlier than breaking into the membership’s first staff as an adolescent. Each are additionally left-footed forwards who started their careers at an unusually younger age.
In December 2024, when Messi was requested by a reporter about which soccer participant reminded him of himself, Messi replied, “If I’ve to decide on somebody, due to the age and due to the longer term that he has, I’ve heard that they’ve chosen Lamine Yamal — and no doubt, [it’s him] for me too.”
Argentina’s Lionel Messi in Arlington, Texas, June 22, 2026 and Spain’s Lamine Yamal in Arlington, Texas, July 14, 2026.
Reuters
“He is the current and indubitably has an enormous future,” he added on the time.
Practically twenty years after their charity photoshoot, Messi and Yamal will meet on soccer’s largest stage as Spain faces Argentina in Sunday’s FIFA World Cup Closing.
Whereas they’ve succeeded in every of their rounds all through the event, there isn’t a public file of Messi and Yamal assembly because the photoshoot, making Sunday’s last a possible reunion many years within the making.
Forward of the match, Yamal advised a reporter, “I would like to face Messi in a World Cup last.”
Whether or not or not the match marks Messi’s last World Cup look stays to be seen. For a lot of followers, it represents greater than only a battle for soccer’s largest prize, bringing collectively two gamers linked by one unforgettable {photograph} — one who has outlined his technology and one other who might outline the following.
The FIFA World Cup Closing will happen Sunday, July 19, at 3 p.m. ET at New York-New Jersey Stadium.
The Walt Disney Co. is the mum or dad firm of ABC Information and ESPN.
Copyright © 2026 ABC Information Web Ventures.
