Lionel Messi’s childhood has suddenly taken over X. Over the past few days, photographs of Messi as a baby, at school and with his family have been popping up across football social media, with some posts attracting millions of views.
The reaction has been almost as entertaining as the pictures themselves.“I swear somebody broke into Messi’s house and stole his childhood album😭,” one fan joked.But did someone actually find Messi’s childhood album? Not quite.
“Somebody broke into Messi’s house…”
The joke came from X account @Akhilleotouched, which shared two childhood photographs of Messi while quoting another archive account. Another fan, @bbhfault, joked: “At this point I’m starting to believe it’s Messi’s mother who’s running this acc😭”.
The post quoted @Barca_Archive’s photograph of a young Messi sleeping, captioned: “Five year old Messi sleeping in his bedroom, 1992.”
The photograph has now been widely circulated, but its original source isn’t immediately clear. The post doesn’t identify a photographer, archive or earlier publication.
So while @Barca_Archieve is helping the image reach a huge audience, that doesn’t necessarily mean the account discovered or originally published it.
Some of the photographs are much older than the current trend
Another @Barca_Archive post showed Messi as a baby with his mother, with the caption:
“1-year-old Messi with his mother, 1988.”
Unlike the bedroom photograph, this image has a much longer documented history. The photograph has been preserved in professional photographic archives and has circulated publicly for years.
In other words, the photograph currently going viral isn’t necessarily a new discovery. It is an old image being rediscovered by a new generation of football fans.
And the school photographs provide an even bigger clue.
He was just ‘Lionel preschool A’
X account @iler_encés posted photographs of a young Messi alongside the caption: “Long before showing the world he is the GOAT, he was just ‘Lionel preschool A’.”
“Little Messi in the school album really hasn’t changed his cute face at all 🥹🤏,” the account added.
The photograph contains a particularly useful clue:“ESC N° 66 / PRE ESCOLA A / 1992.” That points towards Escuela N.º 66 General Las Heras in Rosario, the school Messi attended as a child. And this isn’t based solely on an X caption.
Messi’s connection to Escuela N.º 66 General Las Heras has been documented in Argentine media, including reports featuring memories from his former teachers and photographs from his childhood.
So at least some of the images now being reposted on X can be connected to the real places where Messi grew up.
Not every viral caption tells the full story
This is where things get interesting.Some of the photographs currently being reposted come with very specific captions, but those descriptions aren’t necessarily independently verified.
For example, @messi_archive10 posted a photograph with the caption:“Messi with his younger sister at the age of 9 ❤️”.
The photograph may indeed show Messi with a family member, but without the original source, date or identification of the people in the photograph, the caption shouldn’t automatically be treated as established fact.
The same applies to several other images circulating from fan and archive accounts. A caption tells us what the person posting the photograph believes it shows. It doesn’t necessarily tell us where the photograph originally came from.
So where are these photographs coming from?
There doesn’t appear to be one mysterious Messi childhood album suddenly being released online. Instead, the current wave appears to be bringing together old photographs from several different sources.
Some are professional archive photographs. Some are connected to Messi’s school years in Rosario. Some have previously been shared by people from his childhood, including former schoolmate Mavi Leone. And some photographs — such as the viral bedroom image — still don’t have a publicly verifiable original source.
What has changed is not necessarily the age of the photographs. It is who is seeing them now. Archive accounts on X are collecting, reposting and presenting old images to millions of football fans, giving photographs from Messi’s childhood a completely new life. And judging by the reactions, fans aren’t exactly complaining. Before the Ballon d’Ors, World Cup and countless records, Lionel Messi was simply a kid growing up in Rosario. Now, decades later, the internet suddenly wants to see his childhood album too.
