Some photos age badly, others evoke nostalgia, and a few, a very few, become the prophecy of a fortune-teller nobody believes. The one of Leo Messi bathing a five‑month‑old baby in the away dressing room at Camp Nou belongs to the third category.
That baby was (and still is) called Lamine Yamal and this Sunday, having just turned 19, he will come up against Messi in the World Cup final in the United States. The image that might have been just a fond memory on his parents’ bedside table has become the prologue to a final that no one could ever have written on purpose.
The stroke of luck that captured destiny
The photo did not come from a marketing whim, but from a charity calendar that the FC Barcelona Foundation and the newspaper ‘Sport’ organised together with UNICEF to raise money for the organisation’s programmes.
Photographer Joan Monfort set up the shoot inside the away dressing room at Camp Nou, with families drawn by lottery in the Rocafonda neighbourhood of Mataró, where Yamal’s family lived. They were matched with Messi, who was then 20 years old and had already won LaLiga twice and the UEFA Champions League.
