From baby photoshoot to World Cup final, Messi and Yamal meet again

20-year-old soccer star Lionel Messi helps to bathe Lamine Yamal, who was merely six months old at the time with Yamal's mother Sheila Ebana during a photo session in Sept. 2007 in the dressing room of the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort) BARCELONA, Spain — Almost two decades ago, photographer Joan Monfort didn't think much of his photo shoot of a teenage Lionel Messi bathing a cute baby boy in a plastic bathtub. Not until the remarkable twist of fate became clear years later, when that infant blossomed into Lamine Yamal.

Now those images of the longhaired Messi, his hands covered in soap suds as if anointing Yamal as soccer's Next Big Thing, have become the most talked about — and gawked about — in the runup to Sunday’s World Cup final, when Messi’s Argentina will play Yamal’s Spain for the biggest trophy in the sport.