BARCELONA, Spain — When Joan Monfort took photos of Lionel Messi and his baby for a charity calendar some 17 years ago, he was sure the long-haired youngster would go on to have a big career in soccer.
He never imagined that the little boy would too.
The baby in the photo that has gone viral online is none other than Spanish prodigy Lamine Yamal, who at just 16 years old is already being compared to the greats of the game.
As the youngest player ever to play for Spain, he also became the youngest player ever to play at the European Championships, currently taking place in Germany.
Yamal added a new chapter to his legend with a stunning goal against France in Tuesday’s semi-final.
One of the long-forgotten photos, taken in 2007, was rediscovered by Yamal’s father last week when he posted it to Instagram with the text “The beginning of two legends.”
Monfort, 56, a freelance photographer who works for The Associated Press and other agencies, said the photoshoot took place in the visitors’ locker room at Barcelona’s Camp Nou in the fall of 2007, when Yamal was just a few months old.
Barcelona players posed with children and their families for the calendar, part of an annual charity drive between local newspaper Diario Sport and UNICEF. Monfort took the photos, and by coincidence, Messi was paired with Yamal’s family. In one photo, Yamal’s mother, who is from Equatorial Guinea, can be seen next to Messi and the baby.
“We created the calendar with the help of UNICEF, who organised a draw in the Rocafonda neighbourhood of Mataró, where Lamine’s family lived. They entered the draw to have a photo taken with Barca players at Camp Nou, and they won,” Monfort said.
It was no easy task, he recalls, mainly because Messi didn’t know what to do with the baby, named Rameen, who was kept in a plastic container during filming.
“Messi is a very introverted guy, very shy,” Monfort said. “He came out of the dressing room and all of a sudden he found himself in another dressing room with a baby in a plastic tub full of water. It was a complicated situation. At first he didn’t even know how to hold the baby.”
Messi was 20 years old at the time and was already considered a huge talent, but it would be several years before he established himself as one of the most outstanding players of his generation, both with Barcelona and Argentina.
Like Messi, Yamal is a product of Barcelona’s prestigious La Masia youth academy. Despite his age, he has been one of Spain’s best players at Euro 2024, with his team facing France in the semi-final on Tuesday. Yamal turns 17 on Saturday, the day before the final in Berlin.
Montfort, 56, didn’t know it was Yamal in the 2007 photo until the image started going viral online and he received a message from a friend.
He said that in a long career as a sports photographer since 1991, following Barcelona all over the world, he had never felt more excited about a photo he had taken.
“I’m very excited to be a part of such a sensation,” he said. “It feels really good, to be honest.”
