Photo of Lionel Messi with Lamine Yamal as a baby resurfaces

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — When Joan Monfort took photos of Lionel Messi with a baby for a charity calendar nearly 17 years ago, he knew the long-haired young man would make it in soccer.

He couldn’t have imagined that the little boy would do that too.

The baby in the photos — which have gone viral — was none other than Lamine Yamal, the Spanish prodigy who, at 16, is showing such promise that he is already being compared to the greats. The youngest ever to play for Spain, became the youngest player ever at the ongoing European Championship in Germany.

One of the long-forgotten photos from 2007 resurfaced after Yamal’s father posted it on Instagram last week with the caption “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 dressing room of the visitors to 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 campaign by local newspaper Diario Sport and UNICEF. Monfort was in charge of the photoshoots — and coincidentally, Messi was paired with Yamal’s family. His mother, who is from Equatorial Guinea, is pictured next to Messi and the baby.

“We made the calendar with the help of UNICEF. So UNICEF held a lottery in the Roca Fonda neighborhood in Mataró, where Lamine’s family lived. They signed up for the lottery to have their picture taken at Camp Nou with a Barca player. And they won the lottery,” Monfort said.

It was not an easy task, he recalls, especially as Messi did not know how to handle baby Lamine, who was kept in a plastic container during filming.

“Messi is quite an introverted person, he is shy,” Monfort said. “He came out of the locker room and suddenly he was in another locker room with a plastic container full of water and a baby in it. It was complicated. He didn’t even know how to hold him at first.”

Messi was 20 years old at the time and was already seen as a major talent, but it would take a few more years before he emerged as the most outstanding player of his generation for Barcelona and Argentina.

Like Messi, Yamal came through Barcelona’s famed youth academy, ​​La Masia. Despite his age, he is one of Spain’s best players at Euro 2024, where his team will face France in the semi-finals on Tuesday. Yamal turns 17 on Saturday, the day before the final in Berlin.

Monfort, 56, had no idea it was Yamal in the 2007 photos until a friend messaged him when the pictures started trending online.

He has had a long career as a sports photographer since 1991, following Barcelona around the world, but he says he has never experienced such excitement around his photos.

“It’s very exciting to be associated with something that has caused such a sensation,” he said. “To be honest, it’s a very nice feeling.”

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AP EC 2024: https://apnews.com/hub/euro-2024