Spain advanced to the World Cup final after defeating France 2-0
Spain defeated France 2-0 to reach the 2026 FIFA World Cup final. Jon Arnold breaks down La Roja’s semifinal victory from Dallas.
Oh baby! The next photo Lamine Yamal and Lionel Messi take together is going to be epic.
No way it’s as adorable as their first photo together, however.
See, Spain’s teen superstar was born in the Barcelona area. In the fall of 2007, when he was 5 months old, FC Barcelona raffled off the chance for local families to have a photoshoot with one of the team’s players. The photos were going to be part of a calendar that would raise funds for UNICEF, the humanitarian organization that once graced the front of Barcelona’s jerseys.
Yamal’s family was one of those chosen in the raffle, and Barça paired its then-up and coming star Messi with the baby for their photoshoot. But Messi, then 20, didn’t just hold baby Yamal. No, he took photos with Yamal in a bathtub, as if he was bathing him.
“Messi is a pretty introverted guy, he’s shy,” Joan Monfort, the photographer who took the photos, told the Associated Press in 2024. “He was coming out of the locker room and suddenly he finds himself in another locker room with a plastic tub full of water and a baby in it. It was complicated. He didn’t even know how to hold him at first.”
In what might be the ultimate parent-embarrassing-their-kid-by-breaking-out-baby-photos, Yamal’s father posted one of the photos during the European championship two years ago.
“The beginning of two legends,” Yamal’s father, Mounir Nasraoui wrote.
Though Yamal had made his Barcelona debut before his 16th birthday, that tournament was Yamal’s breakout. He became the youngest goal scorer in European championship history as Spain won the title.
Sure enough, the rest of the photos were soon circulating.
“It’s something incredible,” Monfort told The Athletic in a July 2024 interview. “Back then, nobody could imagine that this baby would be who he is now — and you could not have known that Messi would become who he became, either.
“We are talking about 2007. Messi was only beginning at Barca then. Destiny plays an important role in these things.”
Now the duo will come full circle, meeting in the Sunday, July 19, World Cup final. When he was shown a photo of their now-world famous photo shoot after Spain’s victory over France in the semifinals, Yamal grinned.
“I hope to face him in a final,” Yamal said.
What a photo this will be.
