Photo of young Lionel Messi with Lamine Yamal as a baby goes viral

When Joan Monfort took photos of Lionel Messi with a baby for a charity calendar almost 17 years ago, he knew the long-haired young man would make it big in soccer. He could not have imagined the little boy would as well.

The baby in the photos — which have gone viral on social media, reaching millions of views on X (formerly Twitter) — was none other than Lamine Yamal, the Spanish wunderkind, who won the European Championship Saturday with Spain the day after his 17th birthday. The youngest player to have appeared at a European Championship, Yamal is already being compared to the greats.

Messi also won big on Sunday, with his Argentina taking home the Copa America championship, marking the team's third straight major title.

One of the long-forgotten photos from 2007 resurfaced after Yamal's father posted it on Instagram July 4 with the text "the beginning of two legends."

Monfort, 56, who works as a freelance photographer for The Associated Press and others, said the photo shoot took place in the visitors' locker room at Barcelona's Camp Nou in the autumn of 2007, when Yamal was just a few months old.

Barcelona players posed with children and their families for a calendar as part of an annual charity drive by local newspaper Diario Sport and UNICEF. Monfort was in charge of the photo shoots — and it just so happened that Messi was paired with Yamal's family. His mother, who is from Equatorial Guinea, is next to Messi and the baby in one of the photos.

"We made the calendar with the help of UNICEF. So UNICEF did a raffle in the neighbourhood of Rocafonda in Mataro where Lamine's family lived. They signed up for the raffle to have their picture taken at the Camp Nou with a Barca player. And they won the raffle," Monfort