The first time Leo Messi played in a World Cup, back in 2006, Lamine Yamal was not even a life project yet. 20 years later, the last two great idols of Barcelona will have the opportunity to meet on the pitch for the first and, presumably, last time, no less than in a World Cup final. The photo between the two greatest exponents of Argentina and Spain will be the most sought after for its exceptionality, but it will not be the first.
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A couple of years ago, a snapshot taken in 2007 of a young and long-haired Messi bathing a four-month-old baby for a charity photo session went viral worldwide. Fate wanted that baby to be Lamine Yamal, heir to the blaugrana number ten. A premonitory image of the transfer of power between the two that is again circulating uncontrollably on social networks and media. The author of that photograph is Joan Monfort, who once explained to La Vanguardia the story behind that image.
After the Argentina-Spain matchup was announced, Monfort recounted again how that “miracle” came about. In statements to El Món a RAC1, the photographer who at that time worked for Sport explained that the photo session of about 25 minutes was for a charity calendar of the newspaper, together with the Barça foundation and Unicef. It featured twelve first-team players with twelve children at risk of social exclusion. Chance brought Messi and Lamine Yamal together.
One of the best athletes in all history with someone on the way to becoming one… is very big. It never ceases to amaze me
Joan Monfort
Photographer
Oriol Canals, then marketing manager of Sport, warned Monfort from one day to the next that Messi would be photographed with a “kid.” “I asked how old he was and he said ‘about four months.’ ‘Wow, but that’s a baby!’ I replied.” Monfort kept thinking about the “interaction” that could happen between a 20-year-old and a baby while bathing his daughter Jana. At that moment, the light bulb went off. The next day he showed up in the visiting locker room at Camp Nou—where the session was held—with the plastic bathtub and rubber duck he brought from home. “I wanted it to convey some joy and happiness.”
Lamine didn’t cry—only during the wait. He even seemed to have fun, as if the camera already liked him. Thanks to the presence of his mother Sheila, he endured the session well. And it wasn’t until 19 years later (curiously the same number Lamine wore at Barça at that time and his current number with Spain), after the publication of the snapshot by the footballer’s father on social media, that Monfort rediscovered his own work, forgotten until then in some folder on a computer or memory stick.
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“Colleagues started calling me reminding me that the photo was mine. Until that moment, we had no clue that baby was Lamine Yamal. The magnitude of this nonsense is crazy. One of the best athletes in all history with someone on the way to becoming one… is very big. It never ceases to amaze me,” he admitted. Monfort attributes that coincidence to providence despite not being very religious. “There is the hand of God behind it so that both were put together. It’s inexplicable.”
Of the two protagonists in the image, he has only been able to talk to Lamine. “I didn’t remember that moment, and I have a good memory,” joked the footballer at an awards ceremony, Monfort said.
In statements to the same station, Canals revealed that Lamine is the only child from the calendar who has become famous. “I have been able to contact some and they are kids who have had a hard time in life. For them, it is a joy to appear in the calendar with the photo of Messi and Lamine (and Sheila, since the image chosen for the calendar was the one where the three appeared).”
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The future image on Sunday, the next one that will be shared countless times, will close the circle.
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