In 2007, a younger Lionel Messi posed for photographs with a child within the dressing room of the Camp Nou in Barcelona for a charity calendar photoshoot.
Messi, who was 20, was already making a reputation for himself and would go on the turn into arguably the best of all time.
However little did the photographer know that the infant would additionally make waves in worldwide soccer lower than 17 years later.
Messi was bathing Lamine Yamal – the 16-year-old who’s taking the European Championships by storm.
His goal against France in the semi-final on Tuesday is one which shall be talked about for many years.
At 16 years and 362 days, the strike additionally made him the youngest man to attain within the event’s historical past.
The long-forgotten photograph of Messi and Yamal resurfaced after Yamal’s father posted it on Instagram final week with the textual content: “The start of two legends.”
The photographs had been taken by Joan Monfort, who works as a contract photographer for the Related Press.
The shoot happened after Unicef did a raffle within the city of Mataró the place Lamine’s household lived, he mentioned.
“They signed up for the raffle to have their image taken on the Camp Nou with a Barça participant. They usually received the raffle,” Mr Monfort instructed the Related Press.
The task wasn’t an easy one, the photographer mentioned.
“Messi is a fairly introverted man, he’s shy,” he mentioned.
“He was popping out of the locker room and immediately he finds himself in one other locker room with a plastic tub filled with water and a child in it. It was sophisticated. He didn’t even know find out how to maintain him at first.”
Like Messi, Yamal went on to play for Barcelona, the place he turned the membership’s youngest ever starter and goalscorer, in addition to the youngest scorer within the Spanish league.
Mr Monfort mentioned it was solely when the photograph began going viral on-line final week that he realised that the infant was Yamal.
“It’s very thrilling to be related to one thing that has induced such a sensation,” he mentioned.
“To inform you the reality it’s a really good feeling.”
