The story behind Messi’s baby photoshoot with Lamine Yamal in 2007
Photographer Joan Monfort explains how an ordinary charity shoot became one of soccer's most extraordinary images of two soccer legends after Lamine Yamal's rise to stardom.
Video Transcript
Lionel Messi is one of the most famous athletes on the planet, and he must've been photographed millions of times.
But some of the most incredible images of him were taken in 2007, pictures forgotten by almost everyone, perhaps until now.
Messi was just 20 years old and still a rising star at Barcelona, and although nobody could have known it then, the five-month-old baby that he was bathing in the tub was destined to become another Barca star, Lamine Yamal.
It was difficult to take the pictures, but, Lionel, was very professional, and the baby helped us to take a good pictures and the mother, too.
Joan Monfort has been taking pictures for 30 years.
He's covered everything from football to Formula 1 and the Olympics, profiling athletes like Johan Cruyff and Kobe Bryant.
Based in Barcelona, he's also covered the rise of Lamine Yamal.
These are actually his photos from Yamal's Barcelona debut last year, when the then 15-year-old protege became Barca's youngest player in over a century.
But Monfort had no idea that he'd already taken his photo almost 16 years earlier.
Can you remember when you heard that this baby was growing up to be also good at football?
Friday night.
Friday night?
This Friday n- Yes, yes, yes.
What happened?
Yes.
The newspaper Sport call me at 12:00 in the night and say me, "Is this your picture?"
And I re- I asked, "Yes, this is my picture.
I taken, I was take this picture years ago."
And I asked who, who is the baby?
And he tell me the baby is Lionel Messi, of course, and the other baby is, Lamine Yamal.
That's amazing.
What, what was your reaction?
Oof, I don't know.
My reaction is arriving just now, too.
It's very difficult, this question.
I don't know.
It's, it's like, you win the lottery or the, it's a possibility in one million possibility.
Joan Monfort says that he'd totally forgotten about the picture, but since that phone call he's been bombarded with interview requests from all over the world.
The images were taken for a charity calendar created by the Barcelona Club Foundation and Sport newspaper.
In fact, in a previous year, Monfort's own daughter, Jana, had been featured in the calendar posing with Ronaldinho.
She says she can't remember the Yamal shoot, but one of her favorite possessions was in that now famous photo.
A little ducky that floated in my bath, like every day, was there.
So when did you know that your ducky was in the picture?
Like two days ago.
Do you remember it?
Do you remember the duck?
I actually do.
That's adorable.
Do you still have that duck?
That might be worth, a bit of money now.
I know.
I was talking to my mother yesterday and I told her, but I think it's, like, I don't know, it's not in my house.
I'm sorry.
We lost it.
We lost it.
Nobody seemed to know that it was Yamal in the photo until his father posted it to Instagram during the European Championship with the caption, "The beginning of two legends."
Since that famous bathing encounter, Messi has gone on to become a World Cup winner and arguably the greatest football player of all time.
It's very early days for Yamal, but he could be on a similar trajectory to superstardom.
He was already Spain's youngest ever player and goal scorer, and he's just become the youngest player ever to score in the history of the European Championship.
Perhaps all because he was blessed by the GOAT.
The picture has gone viral, and the photographer is now getting recognition for something that happened more than half his career ago.
They say the camera never lies, but this extraordinary picture took almost 17 years to reveal the truth.
