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NEW YORK — What a gift this World Cup final is, to see the past and future together in the present.While there isn’t an actual passing of the torch ceremony Sunday — don’t get any ideas, FIFA, you’ve already junked up the afternoon enough — that is what the final between Argentina and Spain is:Lionel Messi in the sunset of his career and Lamine Yamal just getting started, facing each other for the first, and likely only, time. Messi still, incredibly, at his dazzling best, with his insanely talented heir apparent on the other side of the field. Both improbably linked in the past to create what many can only describe as fate.“He’s one of the top players,” Messi said of the young Spanish star on Friday, July 17, during an appearance at Fanatics Fest.“He has his whole career in front of him and has the chance to make history,” Messi added, “but we’ll give our best for it not to be this time.”Messi, Lamal both defy the oddsThere have been greats in every game who’ve hung on long past their prime, making us cringe as we see them try and squeeze one last event or one last season out of their bodies. There have been prodigies who have flamed out, their skills or psyches unable to bear the weight of the expectations and the heat of the spotlight.That is not the case with Messi or Yamal.At 39, Messi is arguably the best player at this World Cup. He leads the Golden Boot race with eight goals and four assists, and has reigning champion Argentina in the final for a second consecutive World Cup.Is he as fast as he once was? No. But there’ve been a handful of possessions every game in which Messi does something so brilliant, so mesmerizing it makes your jaw drop in astonishment.Take Argentina’s latest rise-from-the-dead win. Messi had assists on both the goals, and the second was simply sublime. He chased down a rebound — see, he can move when he needs to — then delivered a perfect ball to Lautaro Martinez, who headed it in for the winner.“History. Legend,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “Having been able to get to a final like he has in the moment he’s in at age 39, I think it’s something incredible.”Yamal, meanwhile, might only have one goal at this tournament, but the 19-year-old is so disruptive, so crafty, that he has twice been named the player of the match. In the semifinal win over France, it was Yamal who drew the foul that earned Spain a penalty, which Mikel Oyarzabal converted to give La Roja the only goal they needed.“It’s not just Lamine. They are in the final for a reason,” Argentina goalkeeper Emi “Dibu” Martinez said.But it is Yamal who is Spain’s supernova. Just as Messi is for Argentina.Messi, Yamal linked together from startThe ties between Messi and Yamal go way back. All the way back, to when Yamal was an infant and Messi had long hair. Now-famous images show a 20-year-old Messi cradling a 5-month-old Yamal and bathing him as part of a photoshoot for a charity campaign."The beginning of two legends," Mounir Nasraoui, Yamal's father, wrote when he posted one of the photos of Messi and Yamal during the 2024 European championship.When Yamal got older, it was Barcelona that bound them together. Yamal was seven when he joined Barca’s famed Masia Academy, following the same path as Messi once did. Even after Messi left — first to PSG, then to Inter Miami — he kept track of the youngster who was already inviting comparisons.“There is a new generation of footballers who are very good and who have many years ahead of them, but if I have to choose one because of age, for what he has done so far and for the future he may have, it is Lamine,” Messi told Diario Sport in May.“There’s no doubt, for me, he’s the best.”Similar career arcsYamal made his debut for Barcelona’s senior team at 15, two years younger than Messi was, and both made their presence known immediately. They each had 30 goals and more than a dozen assists by the end of their fourth season (though Yamal’s first season was all of one game) and had already started filling their trophy cases.Messi won two La Liga titles in those first four years while Yamal already has three. Messi won the Champions League in his second season while Yamal helped Spain win the European title after his second year with Barca.The soccer world should be so lucky if Yamal's career continues to follow the same trajectory as Messi's. It will be like Michael Jordan giving way to LeBron James. Or Patrick Mahomes stepping into Tom Brady's spotlight.“Messi is an ‘unrepeatable’ player,” Spain coach Luis de la Fuente cautioned. “Lamine has to be Lamine. The best way we can help him is supporting him, helping him be the Lamine we’ve known because he has an exceptional future.”Just as Messi once did.There will never be another Lionel Messi. But there will be a Lamine Yamal, and getting to see them together, in a World Cup final, is a privilege no one should take for granted.Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
