Lamine Yamal and Lionel Messi’s bath picture and humbling moments future greats meet their heroes
Of all the indignities that await us as we age, few are as humbling as the achievements of teenage athletes.
Lamine Yamal’s earliest memory of tournament football might be the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, which took place just before his seventh birthday. This is an event which either seems quite recent or you might be struggling to remember, for reasons of age rather than youth.
This is the same Yamal who scored possibly the best goal of Euro 2024 on Tuesday night, repeatedly tore apart a previously excellent French defence and is on the verge of a major trophy before he is allowed to drive. Startling achievements, made more vivid by photos which have surfaced of the infant Yamal being cradled by Lionel Messi in the first months of his life.
Messi, 20 at the time, is pictured posing with baby Lamine in the dressing room of the Camp Nou in images for a charity calendar. Unicef held a raffle in Yamal’s hometown of Mataro which his family won. The Argentine supervises a non-metaphorical early bath for Yamal and smiles beatifically while cradling a child who was 16 years away from making his debut on the same pitch graced by Messi.
Some comfort to learn that Messi was not as naturally gifted at child-holding as he is at maintaining possession of a football. “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,” said the photographer Joan Monfort to Associated Press. “It was complicated. He didn’t even know how to hold him at first.”
It is a remarkable picture given Yamal’s age at the time, the happenstance of the meeting and his comparable trajectory with Messi. Many future starts of sport meet their idols as children, but few so young and with an undisputed 10/10 in the crucial and just-invented Combined Star Power (CSP) metric.
Thierry Henry and Kylian Mbappe
Two heroes of the French national team met on a training pitch. Extra points for how delighted Mbappe looks, and Henry gamely matching his enthusiasm.
CSP: 9/10
Laura Kenny and Bradley Wiggins
Met in 2004 shortly after Wiggins won gold for Team GB at the Athens Olympics. He kindly allowed Kenny, then Trott, to pose with his gold medal, eight years before she won one herself.
CSP: 7/10
David Beckham and Harry Kane
Beckham launched a football academy in the shadow of the Millennium Dome in 2005. Kane, a year into his association with Spurs came for the photo opp, and his now-wife Kate is alongside him.
CSP: 8/10
Michael Schumacher and Max Verstappen
Two Formula One legacy merchants collide, although given Max’s father Jos took part in 107 grands prix, there is a little less romance to this meeting than some others.
CSP: 8/10
Ronaldo and Neymar
All-time Brazilian legend meets player who came close to achieving similar status, were it not for that pesky injury and subsequent 7-1 defeat to Germany in 2014.
CSP: 8/10
Joe Root and Michael Vaughan
Root was earmarked for greatness almost as soon as his name became known. Perhaps the clues were there, given he looks to be awarding this trophy to Vaughan rather than the other way around.
CSP: 8/10
Cristiano Ronaldo and Jesse Lingard
The oft-cited but little-seen “giving his head a wobble” when Ronaldo demonstrated some ball skills to United’s youth teams. Would be playing together by 2021.
CSP: 7/10
Serena Williams and Coco Gauff
This year’s French Open winner was Williams’ stunt double in an advert when she was 11. The first picture she ever posted to Instagram was with Serena.
CSP: 8/10
Danny Welbeck and Rio Ferdinand
In which Ferdinand teaches a 10-year-old Welbeck how to escape from defensive pressure, with Ferdinand suitably impressed with the youngster’s ball skills.
CSP: 6/10
Joost van der Westhuizen and Faf de Klerk
De Klerk idolised the late 1995 World Cup winner and met him in his pre-flowing mane days, at a time when graffitied baseball caps were the height of fashion.
CSP: 8/10
