How Destiny Connected Lionel Messi And Lamine Yamal From A Charity Bathtub To The FIFA World Cup Final: Football’s Greatest Full-Circle Story 

BELLO AKINKUNMI YAKUB 

Some stories are so remarkable that they seem too perfect to be true. In 2007, a young 20-year-old Lionel Messi took part in a UNICEF charity photoshoot organized to raise funds for children.

During the session, the rising Barcelona star gently bathed a five-month-old baby while renowned photographer Joan Monfort captured what everyone believed was just another charity photograph.

No one, not even Lionel Messi, not the photographer nor the child’s family could have imagined they were witnessing the birth of one of football’s most extraordinary stories.
That baby was Lamine Yamal.

Reflecting years later, Joan Monfort described the assignment as an ordinary charity shoot that unexpectedly became one of the most iconic images in football history after Yamal’s meteoric rise to global stardom.

The photograph has since come to symbolize destiny, legacy and the passing of the torch between two extraordinary generations. Messi fulfilled his destiny by becoming a football legend, winning the FIFA World Cup and inspiring millions across the globe.

Nearly two decades later, Lamine Yamal has emerged as Spain’s brightest young star, rising from same Barcelona FC that Messi rose and played as a professional in the Spanish Laliga to attain glory, dazzling the football world with breathtaking skill, confidence and maturity far beyond his age just just like the football legend who blazed the trail before him.

Now, history is preparing to write yet another unforgettable chapter. The same football legend who captains Argentina and once gently bathed a baby who grew up to become one of the game’s most exciting talents, is now expected to compete with that exponential talent who is now Spanish Lamine Yamal on football’s grandest stage at the 2026 FIFA World Cup as Argentina lock horns with France at the final match of the mundial.

Some photographs preserve memories. This one preserved the future. While moments are captured by a camera, others are written by destiny.

*-Bello Akinkunmi Yakub writes from Lagos, Nigeria (belloakinkunmi@gmail.com)*