A 2007 charity photo brought them together. The 2026 World Cup final will bring them face to face — 19 years later.
This isn't a movie script. It's a true story about Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal — about fate quietly at work, bringing two megastars from different generations together long before they ever met on a football pitch. Long before they would face each other in the World Cup 2026 final.
The year was 2007. Catalan newspaper Sport ran a charity raffle aimed at parents and babies, sponsored by UNICEF, the UN agency devoted to children's welfare around the world. A handful of winners were selected. Their prize: a photo session with Barcelona's first team at Camp Nou.
Among the lucky winners were an immigrant couple — Mounir Nasraoui from Morocco and Sheila Ebana from Equatorial Guinea. For the photo shoot, the husband, wife, and their baby were paired up with Messi, then a 20-year-old rising star at Barça.
The baby was just five months old. His name was Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana.
No, this wasn't just some coincidence. This was fate, whispering a secret to anyone paying close enough attention — the kind of foreshadowing you'd find in a novel or a film script; a small hint dropped for a much bigger story still to come. People only notice it, only "suddenly remember" that tiny fragment, once the full picture finally reveals itself.
Messi probably forgot he'd once cradled a baby named Lamine Yamal. There was laughter, there was warmth — genuine, unscripted.
Photographer Joan Monfort, who was there to capture the closeness of that charity event, had forgotten too. It only came back to him when Lamine Yamal helped Spain win Euro 2024. The boy's father, Mounir, posted the photo taken 17 years earlier with a caption: "Two legends begin."
"It really is an incredible twist of fate," Monfort told BBC Sport. "It's serendipity. That beautiful kind of luck — when you're not looking for something, but you stumble onto it anyway, and it turns out to be worth so much more than you ever imagined. Even as a movie, the story would be hard to believe."
Messi was still a bit awkward back then. He didn't quite know what to do with the baby in his arms. He certainly had no idea that this same baby would one day follow in his footsteps — closer to him than almost anyone else ever would. Like a shadow.
From the age of 20 onward, Messi became something like a lighthouse for the club Catalonia holds so dear — towering, brilliant, untouchable. He became the idol of football fans everywhere. An irreplaceable legend. The Greatest of All Time. The best there's ever been, anywhere in the world.
Meanwhile, the baby named Lamine Yamal grew up healthy and strong. At four years old, he joined a local football club called La Torreta. Two years of playing at that youth level was enough for a scout to spot him and invite him to a trial at La Masia.
That's Barça's famous academy — the football school that produced greats like Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández, the engine room of Spain's 2010 World Cup-winning side. Messi came through La Masia too.
A 2007 charity photo brought them together. The 2026 World Cup final will bring them face to face — 17 years later.
At seven years old, in 2014, Lamine Yamal officially became a student at the academy. He was carving out his own path, one that kept edging closer to Messi's. And starting to resemble it, too.
Just for comparison: on the day Messi turned 19, he'd scored 11 goals in his career and already won La Liga and the Champions League. Lamine Yamal turned 19 this past July 13th. By then he'd already scored 56 goals, won La Liga three times, lifted the Copa del Rey once, and won Euro 2024.
For Barça, Messi wrote the most beautiful chapter of the club's history across 18 years at Camp Nou. Every trophy, every record — all of it carries his name. Lamine Yamal is his heir. Even the legendary number 10 shirt has been passed down to him.
Two stars, touched by fate. Brought together once, almost by magic. Now brought together again, in the World Cup 2026 final. Messi, 39 years old. Lamine Yamal, 19. The elder statesman leading Argentina, the young star driving Spain forward. Messi chasing his legacy. Lamine Yamal chasing proof of his own.
Long ago, Messi held Lamine Yamal in his arms, in an unlikely crossing of two destinies. Now, let fate decide the rest. (*)
