Soccer legend Lionel Messi has seen the viral chatter surrounding his history with Spanish athlete Lamine Yamal nearly two decades before the pair are scheduled to meet in the highly anticipated 2026 World Cup final.
“Honestly, looking at that photo is crazy,” Messi, 39, said in Spanish during a Fanatics Fest press conference on Friday, July 17, per social media footage. “Well, that’s life, right?”
Messi leads Argentina’s national soccer team, who are hoping to score another victory in the World Cup this year. The Argentinian squad will take on Yamal, 19, and his Spanish teammates in the Sunday, July 19, matchup.
Long before Yamal turned pro, his parents won a UNICEF raffle in 2007 for their then-infant son to pose with an FC Barcelona athlete in a calendar spread. Messi was the soccer star in question, where he was photographed giving the baby a bath.
“I took a photo with him when he was a baby, and now here we are facing each other in a World Cup,” Messi mused on Friday, going on to gush about Yamal’s athletic talents. “Lamine is an amazing player, someone whom I follow closely because he plays for a club I love. I always wish the best for [FC Barcelona], and I always want the best for him. He is one of the world’s leading stars.”
Messi continued, “At 19 years old, he has his whole career ahead of him and he has a great opportunity to achieve something historic, which we will try our best to ensure doesn’t happen this time. But anyway, I wish him the best.”
The now-viral image was taken by photographer Joan Monfort, who similarly couldn’t believe that Messi and Yamal would go head-to-head on the world’s stage (or should we say pitch) almost 20 years after he snapped the now-unbelievable picture.
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“I have never been a believer or thought that anything was destined to occur, but I am beginning to have my doubts,” Montfort told the Associated Press earlier this month. “This is beyond all reasonable explanations. This has exploded all over the world, and the fact that the final is in the U.S. has given it the extra push. And now this has culminated with the final between Messi and Yamal. It is better than any film script.”
While Monfort is a lifelong FC Barcelona fan, he couldn’t choose between supporting Messi or Yamal on Sunday.
“My heart is split,” he quipped to the outlet. “I don’t know if I want Messi or Yamal to win.”
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