Messi first met Yamal as a baby. The World Cup final will be their next meeting - ESPN

Editor's Note: This story was first published on July 10, 2024 and has been updated

Defending champions Argentina booked their place in the FIFA World Cup final against European champions Spain with their 2-1 win over England, setting up a clash between Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal.

Barcelona's 19-year-old boy wonder Yamal and the club's all-time top scorer 39-year-old Messi will meet on the pitch for the first time in Sunday's match in New Jersey, but it's not the first time they have met. It's unlikely Yamal will remember his initial encounter with the GOAT, because it happened when he was still a baby and Messi was a 20-year-old rising star.

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It sounds improbable, but there is pictorial evidence thanks to a batch of unique photographs of the event which resurfaced online two years ago as Yamal starred in Spain's victorious UEFA European Championship campaign, and now hold new significance ahead of his reunion with Messi in the biggest soccer match of all.

The photos show Yamal as an infant being bathed by Messi, who was just beginning his own ascent to greatness at the time. A crop of one of the photos was posted on Instagram by Yamal's father, Mounir Nasraoui, along with the caption: «The beginning of two legends.»

It was freelance photographer Joan Monfort who shot a series of images of various Barça players posing with children and their families as part of a charity calendar organised by Catalan newspaper Diario Sport in conjunction with UNICEF.

«We made the calendar with the help of UNICEF,» Monfort