No Longer A Baby In A Bathtub, Yamal Reunites With Messi At The World Cup Final

In 2007, a 20-year-old Lionel Messi posed for a Barcelona charity calendar, gently bathing a baby in a plastic tub. The baby's family had won a UNICEF raffle. Nobody thought about the photo again for 17 years.

The baby was Lamine Yamal.

You could write fiction for a decade and never come up with that. On Sunday at the World Cup final in New Jersey, the greatest player of all time faces the teenager many believe will inherit the title, and there's photographic evidence that Messi literally held him first. Both came through La Masia. Both wore No. 19 at Barcelona before switching to the 10. The soccer gods stopped being subtle a long time ago.

Somehow, the two teams are just as compelling as the two stars.

Start with the history, because there's barely any. Spain and Argentina have met once at a World Cup, a 1966 group-stage game that Argentina won 2-1 behind a Luis Artime brace. They've never met in a knockout match. The all-time series is deadlocked at six wins apiece. This year's Finalissima was supposed to settle things in March before it was called off, so instead the reigning European and South American champions will meet for the first time in World Cup final history, with the biggest trophy in sports on the table. Fine. That works too.

The paths could not look more different. Spain dismantled France 2-0, making the tournament's most feared attack look ordinary. This is the best possession team in the world, and more importantly, the team with the clearest identity in the sport. In an era where so many teams press and build up the same way, Spain still looks unmistakably like Spain. That's worth something in a one-off final.

And the names driving it aren't the ones anyone predicted. Yamal has one goal all