It’s been dubbed soccer’s greatest “full circle” moment. Fans are lighting up over photos taken 19 years ago showing Argentina’s Lionel Messi with Spain’s Lamine Yamal as a baby, as they prepare to face each other in Sunday’s World Cup final.
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The photos were taken in 2007, when Yamal’s family won a UNICEF raffle to have a photoshoot with a Barcelona player, photographer Joan Montfort told the Associated Press.
The photos show a long-haired Messi holding and bathing a chubby Yamal when he was just a few months old. They first reappeared during the European Championships in 2024 when a photo from the shoot was shared by Yamal’s father. “The beginning of two legends,” he wrote, as Yamal became the youngest ever player in the tournament.
Messi, now 39, is widely regarded as the best player of his generation, and Yamal, now 19, is one of Spain’s brightest young stars.
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Fans can’t get enough of the seemingly prophetic photos ahead of Sunday’s final in New Jersey.
“I guess Messi baptised him in that water to become the next king of football,” one user wrote on social media.
“Football has a beautiful way of coming full circle,” another said.
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