In football there are coincidences that surpass the imagination of the best screenwriters. The date to circle on the calendar is July 13, 2007, the location the Camp Nou locker room. Joan Monfort, a freelance photographer, is taking the images for the 2008 charity calendar organized by the newspaper Sports Diary in collaboration with UNICEF.
Among the families drawn to participate in the initiative is that of a five-month-old baby from the Rocafonda neighborhood of Mataró. That child is called Lamine Yamal. The Barcelona footballer paired with him for the shooting is a shy twenty-year-old Argentine boy who is enchanting the world, but who has not yet won any of his Ballon d’Ors: Lionel Messi.
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Messi’s embarrassment and the plastic duckling trick
The meeting between the two was not easy. Lionel Messi, very young at the time and without any experience with children, found himself visibly uncomfortable in front of a plastic basin full of water with a newborn baby inside. As Joan Monfort himself said, the Argentine champion initially didn’t know how to move or how to pick up the little one. Complicating matters were the crying of the child and the natural reserve of the footballer.
To break the deadlock and capture the moment, the photographer had to use a plastic duckling stolen from his own daughter. Only then was Messi able to loosen up, giving the camera the delicate gestures of bathing and the subsequent moment in which he wraps Lamine Yamal in a white towel, assisted by the child’s mother, Sheila Ebana.
The post on Instagram and the rediscovery of a global heirloom
For almost twenty years those photographs remained buried in the archives, forgotten even by their author. The turning point came in the summer of 2024, when Mounir Nasraoui, father of Lamine Yamal, published the image on Instagram with the caption “the beginning of two legends“, just as his son was dragging Spain to victory in the European Championship.
Joan Monfort discovered only at that moment, thanks to a phone call from a colleague, that the newborn from that complex photographic session had become the new phenomenon of global football. A shot born by pure chance – given that the family would probably have preferred Ronaldinho, Xavi or Iniesta – turned into the historical document of an unrepeatable handover.
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Coming full circle at MetLife Stadium
Today that plastic basin will give way to the lawn of the MetLife Stadium, where on Sunday 19 July at 9pm Italian time Argentina and Spain will compete in the final of the 2026 World Cup. At 39 years old, Lionel Messi leads his national team in the last act of his legendary career, after having dragged his teammates to the semi-final against England with two decisive assists.
On the other side of the field, just turned 19, is Lamine Yamal, the precocious talent who has already broken his idol’s youth records and who is seeking planetary consecration. The ninety minutes of Sunday’s final will not only award the World Cup, but will formally close the circle of a destiny that had already united the two protagonists more than 18 years ago.
