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 football. He could not have imagined the little boy would as well.
The baby in the photos – which have gone viral – was none other than Lamine Yamal, the Spanish youngster, who at 16 is showing such promise that he is already being compared to the greats. The youngest to have played for Spain, he became the youngest player ever in the European Championship at the current tournament in Germany.
The long-forgotten photo from 2007 resurfaced after Yamal’s father posted it on Instagram last week with the text: “The beginning of two legends.”
Monfort, 56, who works as a freelance photographer for the Associated Press and others, said the photoshoot took place in the visitors’ locker room at Barcelona’s Camp Nou in the autumn of 2007 when Lamine 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 the local newspaper Diario Sport and Unicef. Monfort was in charge of the shoots – and it just so happened that Messi was paired with Lamine 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,” Monfort said. “So Unicef did a raffle in the neighbourhood of Roca Fonda in Mataró where Lamine’s family lived. They signed up for the raffle to have their picture taken at the Camp Nou with a Barça player. And they won the raffle.”
It wasn’t an easy assignment, he recalled, mainly because Messi wasn’t sure how to interact with the baby, who was in a plastic tub for the shoot. “Messi is a pretty introverted guy, he’s shy,” Monfort said. “He was coming out of the locker room and suddenly he finds himself in another locker room with a plastic tub 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 at the time and already considered a big talent, but it would take a couple of years before he made his mark as the most outstanding player of his generation for Barcelona and Argentina. Like Messi, Lamine Yamal has gone through Barcelona’s renowned La Masia youth academy. Despite his age, he has been one of Spain’s best players at Euro 2024, where his team play France in the semi-finals on Tuesday. He will turn 17 on Saturday, the day before the final in Berlin.
Monfort, 56, had no idea it was Lamine Yamal in those photos from 2007 until a friend messaged him as they started trending online. He has had a long career as a sports photographer since 1991, following Barcelona around the world, but said he has never experienced this level of excitement around any of his photos. “It’s very exciting to be associated with something that has caused such a sensation,” he said. “To tell you the truth it’s a very nice feeling.”