Lionel Messi bathed Barcelona and Spain 16-year-old star Lamine Yamal as a baby

Spain and Barcelona starlet Lamine Yamal was pictured alongside Camp Nou icon Lionel Messi and bathed by the superstar as part of a charity calendar when the teenager was just a baby.

The 16-year-old forward has already established his reputation as one of the true prodigious talents of his generation after a series of sublime showings for his country at Euro 2024. The La Masia youth product has broken several records already at the tournament after becoming the youngest player to feature in the history of the championships.

He wrote his name into the history books when he took to the field against Croatia at the tender age of just 16 years and 338 days, and has tallied up three assists at the tournament so far. However, perhaps his first association with football came at just five months old during an unlikely encounter with Messi during a photoshoot, back in December 2007.

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Nearly 17 years ago, the Argentine forward took part in the event with Spanish newspaper Diario Sport to raise money for charities including UNICEF. During the shoot, the future World Cup winner, who was aged just 20 at the time, cradled the infant Yamal and even bathed him as part of the series of photographs taken by Joan Monfort.

Of coruse, what Messi would never have been able to predict was that the tot would go on to eventually turn out for Barcelona too – before becoming an international star. After capturing the photographs, Monfort reflected on how the pictures first came about, as he told the Athletic: “It was a difficult photo to take. We can say I sweated some blood to take it.

“(Lionel) Messi is still shy now; 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,” he continued, describing the scene which played out. “And with his mother. At the start, there was not much interaction. It was difficult for all of them. But, bit by bit, it started to happen and in the end, it’s a pretty good photo.”

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Describing the reaction after the photos eventually went viral after Yamal’s father posted them on social media, Monfort said: “It’s something incredible.

“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.”

He added: “It’s a one-in-a-million chance that this could happen. It’s such good fortune. These days, it happens a bit more as people have their phones and share photos, but this is like the photo of [Pep] Guardiola as a kid applauding Terry Venables being carried on players’ shoulders. When Venables died, Pep posted the image.”