👶 A charity raffle, a bathtub, and a future Ballon d'Or winner
In autumn 2007, FC Barcelona partnered with UNICEF and the Spanish sports outlet Diario Sport on a charity calendar campaign. As part of it, families from the Rocafonda neighbourhood of Mataró — a working-class area outside Barcelona — were invited into a raffle for the chance to have their photo taken with a Barcelona first-team player at Camp Nou.
The Yamal family won. Their six-month-old son, Lamine, was brought in for the shoot — and ended up in a plastic tub of water with 20-year-old Lionel Messi, then just a promising young winger two years into his first-team career, giving him a bubble bath. Photographer Joan Monfort later recalled that Messi seemed genuinely unsure of himself around the infant: "He's a pretty introverted guy, he's shy. 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."
🌟 From bathtub to Ballon d'Or contender
Eighteen years later, that baby is Lamine Yamal — Spain's teenage right-winger, already one of the most electric talents in world football by the time he turned 18. At the 2026 World Cup, Yamal has been central to Spain's run to their second-ever Final, playing a key role as Spain went unbeaten and conceded only once across their first six matches before beating Belgium and France in the knockout rounds.
Messi, meanwhile, is 39 years old and playing what is almost certainly his final World Cup. He arrives at the 2026 Final tied atop the Golden Boot on 8 goals and holding the all-time World Cup scoring record with 21 — still Argentina's talisman, nearly two decades after that Camp Nou bathtub.
🔮 The 2021 tweet that "predicted" this final
Adding to the eerie full-circle feeling: a social media post from July 11, 2021 has resurfaced and gone viral, in which a user predicted Argentina would beat Spain 3-2 in the 2026 World Cup Final — five years before either team had even qualified. Once Spain and Argentina were confirmed as the two 2026 finalists, the old post exploded, racking up over 150,000 likes and prompting jokes across social media that its author was a "time traveler." The account, largely inactive since late 2025, resurfaced only to reply to its own viral post with a single clock emoji.
Whether or not the exact scoreline holds up on July 19, the coincidence of the matchup itself — called five years in advance — is real, and it's part of why this Final already feels like it's been written before it's been played.
Why this story matters heading into the Final
Messi vs Yamal is being framed everywhere as a changing-of-the-guard story — the game's greatest-ever player against the teenager many expect to inherit that mantle. What most coverage misses is that the two have a real, documented history together that predates either of their careers as we know them: a shy 20-year-old and a baby in a bathtub, brought together by a neighbourhood charity raffle neither could have understood the significance of at the time.
Sources
TODAY.com — The story behind the 2007 photo
IBTimes UK — Explaining the viral charity photo
Yahoo Sports — Why Messi bathed baby Yamal
World Soccer Talk — Which campaign the photo was for
The News — The 2021 prediction post goes viral
Soap Central — Internet reacts to the prediction