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

A viral 2007 photograph of Lionel Messi bathing a young Lamine Yamal has resurfaced ahead of a major soccer final between Argentina and Spain. The image, originally taken for a charity calendar, is being viewed as a symbolic passing of the torch between two soccer icons.
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.
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