Twenty years ago, Lionel Messi was photographed with a baby … who grew up to face him in a World Cup final

In a world of AI images and online hoaxes, it’s a little hard to believe the photos are real.

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But there sits a 20-year-old Lionel Messi, not yet quite the global sensation he’d become in the following years, bathing Lamine Yamal — all of five months old and so far from his own path to soccer stardom.

The photos first went viral in 2024 when Yamal’s father posted one on social media. They resurfaced this week, with Messi’s Argentina and Yamal’s Spain set to meet in Sunday’s World Cup final.

Nineteen years after they were taken, with Yamal becoming one of the biggest stars in soccer and inheriting Messi’s mantel as the cornerstone player for Spanish club Barcelona, people still can’t quite believe what they’re seeing.

“It’s a one-in-a-million chance that this could happen,” photographer Joan Monfort told The Athletic.

Monfort snapped the photos in December 2007 for an annual charity calendar Barcelona released alongside newspaper Diario Sport. Every year, Barcelona players posed for photographs with children, most of which were only remembered by the families.

“The objective was to give visibility to a series of social problems faced by kids and their families,” Monfort told ESPN. “It was coming up to Christmas, and we wanted to transmit humanity, both through the kids and the players. We tried to find a way of them interacting, laughing, as relaxed as possible.”

It was a difficult shot to get, as Monfort tells it.

“Lionel Messi is still shy now,” he told The Athletic. “He was much more shy when he was starting out, and he finds himself there with a tiny baby in a plastic bath full of water.”

But with a little help from the baby’s mother, Monfort managed to pull it off. He had no idea that the pairing — Messi, a blossoming superstar, and Yamal, the infant child of two teenage parents from just outside Barcelona — was sprinkled with more stardust than anybody could’ve imagined.

“It’s something incredible,” Monfort told The Athletic. “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.”

It’d be like discovering a photo of a young Michael Jordan bathing a baby LeBron James, or of Katharine Hepburn with an infant Meryl Streep, or of Frank Sinatra alongside a newborn Bruce Springsteen.

Yamal didn’t grow up to be just any elite soccer player who happens to be playing for Spain, which would be remarkable in and of itself.

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At 19, Yamal may already be the best player in the world — a title the 20-year-old Messi was vying for when the photo was taken.

Yamal is the best player produced by Barcelona’s academy since Messi, to whom Yamal has constantly been compared through his rise. He has inherited the Argentine great’s No. 10 shirt at Barcelona, too.

Yamal evens wears No. 19 for Spain, as Messi did for Argentina when Messi was Yamal’s age. The Spaniard dribbles through much older opponents in Messi-esque fashion, and he has a magic wand of a left foot that even the Argentine wizard would be proud of.

Asked in 2024 which young player reminded him of himself, Messi chose Yamal, who at 17 helped Spain become European champions that summer.

“If I have to choose someone, because of the age and because of the future that he has, I’ve heard that they have chosen Lamine Yamal and without doubt [it’s him] for me, too,” Messi said.

Yamal was asked about the photos ahead of Tuesday’s World Cup semifinal between France and Spain, with England and Messi’s Argentina on the other side of the bracket.

“I’ve grown a little bit, I think [Messi] has as well,” Yamal joked. “I hope I can face him in a final.”

Yamal got his wish.

Messi and Yamal are at opposite ends of their professional journeys. Messi has won eight Ballon d’Ors as the best player in the world, while Yamal is seeking his first (a World Cup win would help). Yamal has helped Barcelona to three Spanish titles, a long way from Messi’s 10.

Sunday could be the last World Cup match for Messi, perhaps the greatest soccer player ever. This is Yamal’s first World Cup. He may have four or five more in his future.

It will be the first time the two Barcelona No. 10s have ever met on the pitch. But for a brief, impossibly unlikely moment nearly two decades ago, their paths crossed for the first time.

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If it hadn’t been photographed, we wouldn’t believe it.