Lionel Messi Bathing a Baby Lamine Yamal

KOTTKE DOT ORG

KOTTKE DOT ORG

MENU

Advertise here with Carbon Ads

Socials & More

Newsletter

RSS Feed

Bluesky

Mastodon

This site is made possible by member support. 💞

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

Beloved by 86.47% of the web.

🍔 💀 📸 😭 🕳️ 🤠 🎬 🥔

× close

posted Jul 15 @ 01:36 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link

Lionel Messi Bathing a Baby Lamine Yamal

These have to be some of the most remarkable sports photos of all time: a 20-year-old Lionel Messi bathing a five-month-old Lamine Yamal.

Two of the best football players in the world, one a Barcelona legend and another a Barca legend in the making. Both came up through the ranks of the club’s La Masia youth academy. Both wore number 19 for Barca before switching to the number 10. And if Argentina can advance past England in this afternoon’s semifinal match, the two will face each other in the World Cup final on Sunday. It’s like if there was a photo of Muhammad Ali holding Mike Tyson as a baby. Remarkable.

And the way the photos happened is completely random; Yamal’s family didn’t have footballing connections or anything like that. The photos were taken by photographer Joan Monfort in 2007 for a UNICEF fundraiser (UNICEF was the jersey "sponsor" for Barca’s 2007-2008 season).

"UNICEF did a raffle in the neighbourhood of Roca Fonda in Mataro where Lamine’s family lived,” said Monfort. “They signed up for the raffle to have their picture taken at the Camp Nou with a Barca player. And they won the raffle.”<br>"He [Messi] didn’t even know how to hold him at first," Monfort said, recalling the difficulties of the shoot. "Messi is 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. It was complicated."

More from Monfort in The Athletic:

“It’s the most famous photo I’ve taken in my life, by a long way. So many people have been interested, again during this World Cup now. If Lamine keeps growing like he is growing, the photo will be even more historic. The chances of all this happening was like winning the lottery. Although it’s not sorted me out financially for life (laughs).<br>“I’m just really happy it happened. It’s especially nice in today’s football, when so much is to do with money and power.”

Joan Monfort

Lamine Yamal

Lionel Messi

photography

soccer

sports

Fave · 0

Share

Open post<br>Copy link<br>Translate

Bluesky<br>Mastodon<br>Reddit<br>Threads

Email<br>Text/SMS<br>WhatsApp

Comments 0

Sort by: thread — thread . latest . faves

&times;<br>If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community<br>guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a<br>look at it.

In order to comment or fave, you need to be a kottke.org member. Check out your membership options.

Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!

&times;<br>In order to comment or fave, you need to be a kottke.org member. Check out your membership options.

Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!

&times;<br>In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.

&times;<br>You cannot comment or reply to this thread.