lamine yamal

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The spotlight on Sunday’s World Cup final will shine brightest on two men, one playing the last game of his sixth tournament and the other the final game of his first.

Argentina’s Lionel Messi, 39, is arguably the greatest player in World Cup history, having played more games, scored more goals and collected more assists than anyone who has gone before him. If Argentina wins Sunday, he’ll match another record as captain of the first team to win back-to-back titles in 64 years.

Spain’s Lamine Yamal, who turned 19 on Monday, may be the heir to all that. He’s already scored 56 goals and won seven major trophies for club and country; Messi had 11 goals and four trophies at the same age.

But these are more than just two ships passing in the night. If fact, this isn’t even their first meeting, although neither remembers the day they were introduced in 2007.

Messi was a shaggy-haired 20-year-old, just beginning his unparalleled career with Barcelona while Yamal was a cherubic 3-month-old, just beginning his life. They came together after Yamal’s mother, Sheila, won a raffle run by a local newspaper and Barcelona’s shirt sponsor, the children’s charity UNICEF. She was told the child would pose with an unnamed first-team player for a photo that would appear in a fundraising calendar.

When she carried her son into the dressing room at Barcelona’s stadium for the photo shoot, Messi appeared, having been chosen by chance. The pictures of a clearly uncomfortable Messi helping Sheila bathe her son in a blue plastic tub were published, then forgotten, until Yamal helped Spain win the 2024 European Championship. After the tournament Yamal’s father, Mounir Nasraoui, posted the picture online with the caption “The beginning of two legends.”

Lionel Messi, then 20, helps bathe Lamine Yamal, who was 3 months old, with help from Yamal’s mother, Sheila Ebana, during a photo shoot in September 2007 in Barcelona.

(Joan Monfort/Associated Press)

“It’s unbelievable,” Yamal’s teammate Mikel Merino said Friday. “The first time I saw it, I thought it was AI. It’s funny how life works sometimes. You have these situations you think is scripted by someone. But it’s just how life works, the coincidences of life.”

That they’ll meet again Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium seems more like destiny than coincidence, but who wins the reunion may be decided, in part, by factors other than the play on the field. Smoke from nearly 900 wildfires burning in Canada have blanketed a large swath of the U.S., from Chicago to New York, resulting in poor air quality that forced the postponement of one MLS game Thursday.

The sky above the open-air stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., was noticeably clearer Friday and could improve even more with the heavy rains forecast for Saturday. If those rains linger, however, that could also affect what is shaping up to be a battle of the ages.

Messi has carried Argentina into its third World Cup final since 2014, matching France’s Kylian Mbappé with a tournament-best eight goals and leading all players with 12 goal contributions. Four of his scores either tied the game or put Argentina in front and in Wednesday’s frantic comeback win over England, Messi assisted on the tying and winning goals seven minutes apart.

He seems guaranteed to win his third Golden Ball, which goes to the tournament’s outstanding player. He’s already the only player to win the award twice.

Yamal now plays at Barcelona, Messi’s home for 17 years, and he’s proven to be the same kind of game-changing left-footed playmaker, leading the team in goals (24) and assists (17) in all competition and winning La Liga’s player of the year award this season. Last year, at 18, he finished second in the voting for the Ballon d’Or, an award Messi won eight times.

He’s been quieter in the World Cup, with just a goal in seven games, but Spain has never lost a match he’s played in, going 21-0-6.

Yamal’s father was born in Morocco and his mother in Equatorial Guinea before moving to Catalonia with their families as children. Yamal grew up in a working-class, largely immigrant neighborhood the Spanish newspaper El País described as “forgotten, isolated and stigmatized.” His parents separated when he was 3 and while both remained present in his life, it was his paternal grandmother, Fatima, who sacrificed to support the boy, managing his daily routine to make sure he attended training sessions.

That devotion paid off when Yamal, then just 7, was invited to live and train at Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy, the same academy the Argentina-born Messi had entered at 13. When Yamal signed his first long-term contract with the team 14 months ago — a contract that could pay him more than $45 million a year in wages, bonuses and sponsorships, making him the team’s best-paid player, as Messi once was — he was given the No. 10 shirt Messi wore.

“In every match he shows that he is the best player in history,” Yamal told a Spanish newspaper. “If someone has doubts, it is because they are looking for them. There is nothing more to say there. For me, he is the best.”

Spain forward Lamine Yamal controls the ball during a World Cup quarterfinal against Belgium at SoFi Stadium on July 10.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

The comparisons and the praise flatter him, said Messi, who then used the same words to describe Yamal as the best.

“There is a new generation of footballers who are very good and who have many years ahead of them. But if I have to choose one because of age, for what he has done so far and for the future he may have, it is Lamine,” he told the Spanish sports journal Diario Sport in May.”There’s no doubt, for me, he’s the best.”

For all the similarities, there are differences. Yamal plays with much more speed and street-football flair and is far more prolific than Messi was at the same age. And while a young Messi focused almost entirely on soccer, Yamal has learned to speak three languages fluently and, unlike Messi, hasn’t kept his politics hidden, waving a Palestinian flag during the club’s parade through Barcelona celebrating its La Liga title last May.

And remember that charity calendar photo with Messi? The one that raised money for UNICEF? Last month Yamal became a goodwill ambassador for the group, focusing on the right to play and supporting children living through humanitarian emergencies.

Turns out some pictures are worth more than a thousand words.