Who’s basking in the glory? 20-year-old Messi and five-month-old Yamal at a photo shoot in Barcelona in 2007. Now they will compete for football’s greatest honor. | Photo credit: AP
Some old photos gather dust, some take on meaning.
When Lionel Messi held five-month-old Lamin Yamal during the Christmas 2007 charity calendar shoot, it was just another click. Almost two decades later, it has become part of football folklore.
During Euro 2024, Yamal’s father Munir Nasraoui shared an image with the caption: “The beginning of two legends.” What was probably empty words then now sounds like prophecy as the two prepare to face each other in the World Cup final.
Fans, pundits, players and coaches have all expressed their opinions on the duo and they all share the same opinion.
The parallels are hard to ignore. Messi scored his first World Cup goal when he was 18 years old, wearing the number 19 shirt. Twenty years later, Yamal did the same, at the same age and with the same shirt number! He is Barcelona’s youngest debutant and also the youngest goalscorer to break records once held by Messi. The list goes on and on.
“For me, Messi is the greatest football player in history. He is a legend, and I don’t consider myself worthy of comparison with him. I don’t want to be Messi, and he knows it. I want to go my own way,” Yamal once said.
Despite this, it is hard not to notice how closely the teenager follows the trail blazed by Messi, and does so better than others hastily named as the Argentine magician’s successor.
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Messi, now 39, is chasing another piece of history as he tries to make Argentina the first team since Brazil in 1962 to defend the World Cup. He will be up against the 19-year-old Yamal player, the face of the Spanish team, which hopes to win the trophy for only the second time.
Spain once struggled to convince Messi to play for Redback when Albiceleste I was in no hurry to notice him. This push reached its peak before the 2003 FIFA U-17 World Cup, where the Spanish team featured Messi Masia Teammate Cesc Fabregas defeated the Argentines 3–2 in the semi-finals. Fabregas scored a double, including the winning one. José Pekerman, the Argentina coach, said the Spanish players told him during a post-match handshake: “If you had that kid (Messi), you would have been a champion.”
Messi, however, remained loyal to Argentina, leaving behind the old question of what Spain might look like with him in the lineup. This fantasy will never come true. But in Yamal, Spain may have found something close to this.
Now everything is ready for the confrontation between generations. One gladiator is taking part in football’s greatest spectacle for the first time. The other is probably for his last dance. Between them lie two decades, a stack of broken records and a photograph that has become a symbol of how fate always plays a role in football.
The beautiful performance brings these two together again in the same frame, not as legend and heir, but as adversaries fighting for the ultimate prize.
Published – Jul 18, 2026 9:44 pm EST.