The greatest footballer of all time and his heir apparent on the right wing at Barcelona will face each other for the first time when Argentina play Spain in the World Cup final on Sunday.
Lionel Messi, 39, and Lamine Yamal, 19, will face off in the biggest football match. But this isn't the first time the two have met.
This happened in 2007, when Messi was 20 years old, becoming a starter for Barcelona, and Yamal was only five months old.
The meeting is documented in a series of photographs taken by Joan Monfort.
They resurfaced two years ago, when Yamal helped Spain win Euro 2024, after his father posted one online with the caption "The beginning of two legends."
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In the photo, a smiling Messi held and then bathed a little boy, who would inexplicably follow in his footballing footsteps so closely.
"It's a real miracle of luck," Monfort told BBC Sport. "It's a coincidence when you discover something very special, much bigger than you ever thought possible. If you were to write this into a film, it wouldn't seem possible."
Monfort: Messi had no idea what to do with a child
The photo shoot was done in the away dressing room at Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium.
Yamali's family had won a competition to be there.
His parents, Moroccan-born Mounir Nasraoui and Equatorial Guinean Sheila Ebana, met after moving to Catalonia.
Yamal is their eldest child and immediately after his birth, they took part in a lottery organised by the Catalan newspaper "Sport" in collaboration with Barcelona's shirt sponsor and the international children's charity, "Unicef".
Those who would be randomly selected would have their baby professionally photographed with a Barcelona first team player.
Yamal was among the winners and, on the day the family arrived, they were randomly paired with Messi.
"I had no idea it was Yamal in the photo until one of my friends called me in 2024 and told me his father had posted it on Instagram," Monfort explains.
"Messi was a very shy boy. He came into the dressing room and suddenly he had to take these pictures with a little baby and his face changed like he had no idea what to do. It's difficult for a young boy, but Lamine was a happy, smiling baby. His mother, Sheila, helped us, she was a little girl and they were a very poor family, but it was very good to work with them."
Messi was always a professional in these kinds of things and adapted to the situation very quickly.
Messi wore the number 19 shirt for Barcelona in 2007, inheriting the number 10 shirt just a year later when Ronaldinho left the club.
"I will never be able to repay my parents."
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By his 19th birthday, Messi had scored 11 goals in his career and had won La Liga and the Champions League once each.
Yamal, who turned 19 on Monday, has already scored 56 goals and won La Liga three times and the Copa del Rey once, as well as Euro 2024.
Yamal is not actually the player's last name
His full name is Lamine Yamal Naraoui Ebana, and he wears both names on the back of his shirts, for both Barcelona and Spain, as a tribute to two people who helped his family around the time of his birth.
It has been widely reported in the Spanish media that Yamali's father promised to name two friends who helped the family financially, helping them pay bills at a time when money was tight.
Lamine is a common male name in Arabic, which can be translated into English as honest or trustworthy, while Yamal is a variant of Jamal, meaning elegance or beauty.
He grew up in Rocafonda, a working-class neighborhood in Mataro, north of Barcelona.
The area was built in the 1960s to house immigrants from other regions of Spain, and as they began to move to wealthier areas, immigrants from other countries arrived in the 1990s.
Yamal has celebrated some of his goals by making a 3-0-4 gesture with his fingers, referring to the Rocafondas postal code.
"What my mother did, what my father did, I couldn't have done for anyone who wasn't my child," Yamal told El Pais earlier during the tournament.
"If you don't have money, it's very difficult to help your child play football. And my parents managed to make all of this happen. It's something I'll never be able to repay them for."
Heart divided into two parts
For Monfort, a Catalan who supports Barcelona, a meeting on the pitch between the two is the perfect resolution to a story that began almost two decades ago.
"I think we are closing the cycle of their history," adds Monfort, now 58. "It's a happy ending. I'm a Barcelona fan and I think for Messi it would be perfect if he could end his career by winning the World Cup for the second time. I think he deserves it."
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And for Lamine Yamalin, he says there's plenty of time to win trophies like the World Cup. But Spain and Yamal are coming into the final at a good time and if he wins it now, it would be worth more than his other titles.
"It's very difficult for me. My heart is breaking in two."
