In 2016, Lamine Yamal was a Barcelona mascot holding the hand of Real Madrid’s star defender Sergio Ramos in the tunnel before an El Clasico showdown.
Little did Ramos know that Yamal, who had gazed at him with awe, would pressure him into scoring an own goal in a crucial La Liga match in 2023.
Ramos, playing for Sevilla against his old rivals Barcelona again for the first time since 2020, accidentally bundled the ball into his own net in an attempt to block a cross from 16-year-old Yamal.
Barcelona won the game 1-0, and for Yamal it was the second of surreal full-circle moments with football legends.
As a barely six-month old baby in 2007, he was bathed by Barcelona hero Lionel Messi, two years shy of his first Ballon d’Or, in a tub of soapy suds for the club’s charity calendar photoshoot.
Yamal’s pairing with Messi and Ramos as a child has to be one of the greatest coincidences ever heard. It’s wild.
The striking images immortalise a connection that would only gain significance years later.
By the end of his second day as a 17-year-old, Spain’s marauding brace-wearing forward Lamine Yamal, playing so assured that it appears effortless, could be a European champion.
A winner’s medal at Euro 2024 could set the instantly likeable teenager, who has blistering speed and whirring feet, on a course for another close encounter with Messi, 37.
Spain face England in the final of the European Championships (3am tomorrow, Malaysia time) while Messi will feature in the final of the Copa America later in the day.
The plan is for the winners of the Euros to face South America’s champions next year.
England and Colombia, though, stand in the way of another arresting photo opportunity for Yamal and Messi.
Blessed by football ‘God’
How extraordinary is it that Yamal’s father Mounir Nasraoui, a Moroccan, and mother Sheila Ebana from Equatorial Guinea, so happened to win the raffle for the photoshoot?
Nothing happens without a reason and it’s like it was planned all along by the universe: Messi and his successor, who was raised in one of the most deprived areas of Spain, once described by Spain’s far-right VOX party as a “multicultural sh*thole”.
The spiritual symbolism is impossible to ignore, even if it’s absurd to suggest Yamal has been blessed by a god of football via the medium of bubble bath.
It’s hardly more ludicrous than a boy king illuminating the Euros in Germany with delightful performances as a kid. All the time acting as a balancer-in-chief of school commitments and sporting stardom.
The most remarkable photograph of last week will do nothing to suppress comparisons between Messi and Yamal when there are already plenty of them.
They are both left-footed La Masia products who started their Barcelona first team careers on the right wing, effortlessly rewriting records after every logic-defying display of staggering skill.
Mounir, 35, younger than his son’s teammate Jesus Navas, 38, shared the Messi picture on Instagram, dubbing it the “beginning of two legends”.
He did it soon after Yamal’s glorious strike launched Spain to victory in the semi-final against France.
The screamer curled in off the post from 25 yards, making him the youngest man to score in the history of the competition, and one certain to be replayed numerous times as validation of his arrival on the global stage.
The only surprise about that goal was that it hadn’t come sooner. Yamal has been an influential force on the right wing for Spain, causing chaos when he cuts in on his left foot.
It’s unusual for a 16-year-old boy to have that kind of self-confidence, the ability to play and look like a veteran. Only the chosen ones have that, said pundits.
If you think he is a result of fans’ hype and good fortune, you might be missing something important.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s first appearance for Portugal was at 19 years old for Euro 2004. That is the same age Messi played for the national team for the first time in the 2006 World Cup when he was on the bench.
Brazil’s goalscoring great Ronaldo won the 1994 World Cup in America at the age of 17 but he didn’t play a single minute in the whole tournament.
So if you think what’s happening now is normal, consider this: In the 2034 World Cup, Yamal will only be 27 years old.
Will they leave the kid alone?
The trappings of elite football have been quick to engulf Yamal’s life and the test will be not to get ahead of himself.
While it is natural to marvel at his feats at a young age, the football world should refrain from applying undue strain on Yamal.
As football fans, we often hype players and resort to an obsessive scrutiny when everything goes wrong, resulting in them caving in.
Yamal is still in a developing body. Last season, the kid gained eight kilos in weight and grew two centimetres while stirring memories of the young mighty Messi.
Spain should be extremely concerned about him, just as how they were when Morocco tried to bag him to play for them internationally.
Expect Yamal, whose contract has a clause demanding £868 million from anybody who wants to buy him, to write another riveting chapter in the final.
He knows no different, and hopefully we can all enjoy him for years to come.
And England?
It would be nice for England to capture the title after 50 years without a trophy but their football is not attractive to watch.
Spain have been in sync and superior so far, and England is unlikely to stop them.