When Joan Monfort took photos of Lionel Messi with a baby for a charity calendar almost 19 years ago, he knew that the long-haired young man was at the cusp of an amazing football career.
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He could not have imagined though, that the little boy would one day have one of his own.
The baby in the photo – which has now gone viral – was none other than Lamine Yamal, the Spanish wunderkind who at 16 was showing such promise that he was already being compared to the greats of the sport.
Already the youngest to have played for Spain, he became the youngest player ever in the European Championship at the ongoing tournament in Germany.
Details
The long-forgotten photo from 2007 resurfaced after Yamal’s father posted it on Instagram last week with the text “the beginning of two legends.”
Monfort, who currently works as a freelance photographer for The Associated Press and other media companies, said the photo shoot took place in the visitors’ locker room at Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium in the fall of 2007, when Yamal was just a few months old.
Barcelona players posed with children and their families for a calendar as part of an annual charity drive by local newspaper Diario Sport and UNICEF.
Analysis
Monfort was in charge of the photo shoots – and it just so happened that Messi was paired up with Yamal’s family.
His mother, who is from Equatorial Guinea, is next to Messi and the baby in one of the photos.
Messi was 20 at the time and already considered a big talent but it would take a couple more years before he made his mark as the most outstanding player of his generation in Barcelona and Argentina’s national team.
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