To start, here’s a piece of trivia – the Spanish FA pays €30,000 every time Lamine Yamal plays past 11 pm for the national team in the Euro 24. Why? Due to German labour law, no under-aged (below 18) professional can work past 11 PM. Unbelievable, right? But that’s a fact. Just like that, another unbelievable thing about Yamal is his picture with Lionel Messi. To be more specific, a toddler Yamal’s picture with the Argentine.
If you haven’t seen it yet, here they are:
That’s not the only picture available of the Hustle Hard 304‘s tyke with Messi.
Now the obvious question is about the authenticity of it. But no, these are not part of the photoshopped ones trending online. These are 100% real.
Back in 2010, Lionel Messi became the global ambassador of UNICEF but his links with them went a long time back. In 2008, Messi was featured in Diario Sport’s charity calendar. Organized by the Barcelona Foundation, the proceedings from the calendar went to UNICEF. Along with Messi, a 5-month-old Lamine Yamal also featured in the calendar.
Most of Barcelona’s first team players participated in the photoshoot, with over 100 families from around Catalonia volunteering for the project. Yamal’s family had the fortunate opportunity to be paired with Messi.
In the pictures above, the pictures show Yamal with his mother in a water tub. Messi, being the shy boy back then, took time to break the ice with the toddler, but things turned out just fine.
‘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,’ told Joan Montfort, the photographer for the calendar.
Now in 2024, Messi is on the decline after reaching the pinnacle of football and Yamal is on the rise. Yamal might not remember that fateful photoshoot, but he had plenty of chances to capture moments that would last a lifetime.
At the age of 7, Yamal joined the Barcelona academy. But he didn’t have to wait much longer to meet his idol, Barcelona number 10.
The chance came in 2019 when Yamal linked up with Messi during the 8-time Ballon d’Or winner’s visit to Ciutat Esportiva, the club’s training complex.
In just 4 years, Yamal made his debut for Barcelona and Messi, now an ex-Barcelona player, saw a glimpse of the 16-year-old. ‘Lamine, who is now very young and is already playing at Barcelona and being important … will play a prominent role and fight for it in the future too. There are always good players. A very nice stage is coming to for us to enjoy,’ Messi said to L’Equipe in 2023, nominating his predecessor for a future Ballon d’Or win.
However, there’s a lot of time for that to happen and as things are progressing for Yamal, he just might solidify Messi’s fortune-telling expertise.
