Photographer didn't believe in destiny, until he captured iconic Messi-Yamal image

“I do now,” Joan Monfort says. “I didn’t before but now I believe in destiny.”

Fate, or whatever this was, revealed itself just before midnight one Thursday in July. A photograph, taken by Monfort in December 2007 and not seen since, an image lost somewhere in time without anyone realising it was lost at all, reappeared out of nowhere 16 years later. In it, Lionel Messi bathes a tiny baby, aged six months. A plastic tub, bubbles, a rubber duck and a cherubic smile.

The child, the chosen one, is Lamine Yamal.

Wait, that kid is … this kid? The now-17-year-old who, five days after the photo emerged, led Spain to victory over France, taking them into the final of Euro 2024 with an outrageous goal? The prodigiously gifted footballer, the youngest in the history of the selección, called upon to lead the post-Messi generation at Barcelona — no pressure, kid — is that tiny little boy in the tub? The cherubic face of January 2008 in a charity calendar. Of all the children in all of Catalonia, entirely by chance. Put there, as if baptised, anointed, by Messi.

During the Euros, Spain’s coach Luis de la Fuente described Lamine as “touched by God’s wand,” and then, as if by divine intervention, this picture was discovered, like something from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the creation of Adam, some religious artifact. “Without realising, it was there hidden in an ark, and then it appeared,” Monfort says. “It’s the creation; [like] it has religious connotations.” Yamal’s father posted it on Instagram, alongside the text: “The beginning of two legends.”

In a world where words such as “incredible,” “unbelievable” and “amazing” are everywhere and now feel wholly inadequate, this really was. Unfathomable. Hard to comprehend, even now. No one knew that was Yamal; they didn’t even really know that Messi was, well, Messi. Not yet: only 20 at the time, everyone could see that he was going to be special but not how special, not the greatest footballer of all time, the deity that he would become.

Like everyone, Robert Lewandowski, Yamal’s teammate these days, still can’t quite get his head around it. Shown the picture, he says: “I’m not sure that’s the truth, but if it is the truth, that is an amazing history. I don’t know that is Lamine. I cannot be sure, you know?”

Monfort can. He can now, at least. When, a generation ago, he took the photograph that eventually captivated everyone, he had no idea who the child was. For the next 16 years, he had no idea either. It was just a baby, any baby. And it is not like he thought about him often. Now, he does.

“There are nights when I wake up sweating and thinking: ‘Bloody hell, what if it’s not Lamine?!'” he says. “You leap. It’s all like a dream, incredible. This thing that suddenly falls upon you, without warning. The idea that it might not be Lamine is a nightmare, but there’s no chance of that. It’s impossible.”

The whole thing has been impossible.

“We have to say to Lewandowski that at that time there was no artificial intelligence, that Photoshop was pretty ropey,” Monfort continues. “That kid is Lamine Yamal and the kid with the long hair is called Leo Messi. One of those chance things that destiny lays before you. The person who posted the picture was his dad, so that’s it. It looks like Lamine. It is Lamine.”

Monfort laughs. “Please don’t make me doubt now. I spoke to his dad. He was the only one who knew the photo existed. I went to Rocafonda one day. He said: ‘Maybe it’s Lamine blessing Messi, no?'”

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The photo was taken in December 2007, Monfort can’t remember when exactly: “it was registered as 27th but I think it was earlier.” Now a freelancer working for The Associated Press, he has been a sports photographer since 1991. Back then, he worked for the Catalan newspaper Sport. He had been shooting Barcelona players for a calendar that the club’s charitable foundation was putting together with Unicef. Each month would feature a footballer with a child from Catalonia, chosen by a draw.

Among those who had entered their kids in a draw were Sheila and Mounir, Lamine’s parents. They got lucky. More lucky than they could have ever imagined.

“Just being able to go to Barcelona, to go to the dressing room [was special for the families],” Monfort says. “Covering football we maybe don’t treat it with the importance, reverence that we should, but these are sacred spaces for footballers and for someone to go in there … they really enjoy it. And then to meet the players …

“The objective was to give visibility to a series of social problems faced by kids and their families. It was coming up to Christmas and we wanted to transmit humanity, both through the kids and the players. We tried to find a way of them interacting, laughing, as relaxed as possible. We wanted them to spend time with the kids, not just take a quick snap and get out, so that there was a complicity between them. Play with bubbles, a basketball, a [skipping] rope. Kids and adults, playing games. The players engage that way.”

It is, after all, what footballers do.

“For anyone to make a living playing is wonderful, something we would all like,” Monfort says. “People think of footballers and elite sportspeople as something they’re not. We wanted them to interact with the kids, for them to feel comfortable, at ease, fully involved. Football is quite dehumanised; we wanted to humanise them.”

A studio had been set up in the away dressing room at the Camp Nou and each day, one or two players — “I don’t think we ever did more than three in a day,” Monfort says — would come in. Each player had a month. There was Ronaldinho: he was July. The coach, Frank Rijkaard, was on the back cover. Xavi, Samuel Eto’o, Andres Iniesta … “Messi was January, I think because he wasn’t always a starter in the first team then. This is the Rijkaard team that had won the Champions League in Paris [when Messi didn’t play],” Monfort says.

“The day before the shoot I was at home and Oriol Canals called me, who was the marketing manager at Sport. He said tomorrow we have to do Messi for the calendar, with a kid. I asked him how old the kid was and he said, ‘eight months’. I said, ‘Bloody hell, eight months isn’t a kid, it’s a baby.'”

It turned out, he was younger even than that.

“I was bathing my daughter at that point and I was going round ideas in my head; how to do the photo so that there would be some interaction between Messi and the baby,” Monfort recalls. “Messi is very shy, introverted. Even more so back then. And I thought: ‘I have the photo right here in front of me.’ The plastic bathtub, the little rubber duck …”

Does he still have the duck? “No! I’ve moved house too many times,” Monfort says. “Maybe it’ll turn up, let’s not lose hope. After finding that photo, I reckon we can find anything. Maybe the dad has it. I’ll have to ask Lamine one day: ‘Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a little duck at home from when you were a baby, would you?!’

“I thought that would be a way for them to interact. I was more concerned about the baby than Messi, as I recall. You can tell Messi to smile, to relax. You can let time pass so that he is more at ease, but you can’t do anything with the baby. The baby smiles or cries or gets hungry and that’s not in your hands. I don’t do photos with babies, but I know that they can be long and difficult sessions. If it hadn’t been for the mum, the photo wouldn’t have come out the way it did. She gives him the security and tranquility only a mum can.

“When Messi came in, he was a bit surprised. He would have expected a kid and he got a baby. Messi would have been 19, 20. I think it will be the first baby he had picked up in his life but in the end, it went well. When you first pick up a baby, you’re terrified: he’ll break here, he’ll break there. The first time I held my daughter, I had no idea. It’s hard, and for Messi it was hard too. He was stiff, tense. My daughter was 4, I could explain a bit, but it was the mum who really helped. I had enough going on holding my camera and everything, not doing that. But thanks to [Lamine’s] mum it got easier and then he got it right. He’s become an expert since, eh?”

Messi now has three sons of his own.

“Not everyone has been bathed by Messi …” Monfort says, and then he laughs. There, in that line, the absurdity of it all is laid out, the implausibility. Destiny.

“It’s wild. I reckon Messi has probably only ever bathed Lamine and his kids, no?”

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“Looking at the picture now, what I most like is that all three of them are smiling, which is what we wanted,” Monfort says. “It’s Christmas, you want happiness, hope, and there’s that smile. That’s the hardest thing to do and the nicest thing to photograph.”

The picture was perfect, but Monfort says it would be easy to say it was his favourite now, knowing what he knows. Truth is, it was just one of 13, the first in the Barcelona-Unicef 2008 calendar, the page soon turned and forgotten. A single picture among thousands he has taken over almost 35 years, packed away somewhere, history made but still not told, its significance as yet unknown. “Messi wasn’t Messi and Lamine of course was not Lamine; now, this picture would win by miles, of course. I’m not sure I could say which I liked most at the time.”

For 16 years, Monfort had not laid eyes on it, barely gave it a second thought. And then Mounir went on Instagram.

“I would have to look for all the calendars we did, look at the kids and see if they are playing anywhere,” Monfort jokes. “I only found the [2008] calendar two days ago. It was in a drawer, one of those that are there but you don’t know what’s in them. I looked for it [when the story broke in July] and didn’t find it, and then the other day looking for something else, the calendar appeared. Two of them.

“When the story broke, the immediate impact is: this can’t be. I first heard one Thursday at midnight. I went to sleep. I didn’t really treat it like what it would become. Messi with Lamine. Well, buenas noches. See you tomorrow. And the next day it was out of control.

“It was quite stressful,” Monfort admits, a small, brief glimpse of the other side, the people who are usually his subjects: the two men in his most famous photo. “You see it, a bit of the pressure a footballer is under, what he has to know how to deal with. I’m used to being on the other side of the camera. I’m not used to being photographed or interviewed.

“Because I’m a journalist, I tried to respond to everyone. Those were weird days. I was locked in at home Monday to Thursday, physically enclosed and with a list of timings: ‘Now Colombian radio will call, then El Pais, etc., etc. …’ I remember one day I woke up and I was practically dizzy from not eating. I’m a guy who weighs 60 kilos and that’s not something I could allow myself. They were mad days but it’s something very nice. And you think: this is here to be enjoyed. Let’s go.”

Recognition, too. Belated but real, 16 years on. There’s a smile.

“At least it caught me alive,” Monfort says. “Imagine if it had taken 40 years! How many artists are there whose work is only really known when they are dead? So I could enjoy it. That gives you strength, hope, enthusiasm, it reinforces your work. Every job you do, every picture, every setup, you have to give your very best as a photographer, a journalist. You want it to be interesting, worthwhile for you and the person who you are trying to portrait.

“And in the end, what could be nicer for Lamine and Lamine’s mum than a picture with Messi — and for that picture to be nice?”

Whether it had been 40 years or 16, it was still hard to believe, to comprehend. That the picture was there so long, unseen, unmentioned. A piece of heritage hidden away. Hard to believe that no one had said anything sooner. Mounir and Sheila, for a start. Your baby boy has a picture with Messi and you don’t mention it for 16 years? He joins Barcelona and still nothing? Monfort laughs. “A marketing campaign very well done by Lamine’s dad,” he says, smiling.

The timing, it turned out, was perfect, better this way.

“Maybe he had it in a drawer half forgotten and it appears suddenly one day,” Monfort says. “These days I could believe anything because I can’t explain all this, I find it hard to believe even now. I prefer not to think. It turned up when it did, and that’s that. He posted it just when he had to post it up. [Five days before] his son had scored a brilliant goal against France. An operation well done.”

The beginning of two legends.

By Joan Monfort.

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Messi and Yamal, Yamal and Messi. Again?

“Just getting them together would be a great photo, and you could close the circle,” Monfort says. “If I could photograph them together again? As a photographer, you turn things over in your head a lot and then sometimes at the last minute you improvise. Often you imagine a photo, and then a photo you weren’t thinking of appears to you. Maybe you would sit them on a throne, I don’t know. There’s a thousand images you could do with two footballing animals of that level. Any picture would be good with them in. In sports, we tend to be theatrical, but sometimes natural works better; you try to humanise them.”

The temptation would surely be to take some more, tempt fate a bit? More players, more kids, more legends? More bathtubs and rubber ducks, Yamal in the Messi role. A shift in his professional life, perhaps. It’s easy to imagine thousands of parents at his door, wanting portraits of their children, just in case. Maybe some of that magic rubs off. Picture the business card: “Joan Monfort: births and baptisms.” The man whose photograph became the most famous in football 16 years after it was taken, laughs.

“Miracles,” he says.

“You’ve given me an idea. Maybe I should rethink my professional life a bit. I have the studio here behind me. If your son is 6 months old, he can be the first. But I don’t think we’ll succeed. This happens only once, and you can’t control it.”