In the realm of possibilities, the story of how Lionel Messi first met Lamine Yamal, and how their lives have unfolded since, falls in the category of things that make reality seem highly questionable. It’s December 2007. Barcelona are doing a charity photoshoot at the Camp Nou, with the proceeds going to UNICEF. The shoot involves pairing each senior team player with a baby, typically from an underprivileged family, picked through a lottery. Messi is 20, just three years into Barca’s senior squad after graduating from La Masia academy. Dressed in a white hoodie and black track pants, with shoulder-length hair, he looks shy and awkward.
The mother of the baby he has been paired with, a teenager herself, does her best to put him at ease. She has travelled more than 40km from the impoverished housing projects of Mataro, a port city northeast of Barcelona, for this opportunity. Her son is just five months old. Messi is going to bathe him in a tiny plastic tub. Her name is Sheila Ebana, an immigrant from Equatorial Guinea. Her husband, Mounir Nasraoui, is from Morocco. They are struggling to make ends meet, but they have found support in two friends, Lamine and Yamal, who have helped them financially since their son’s birth. In gratitude, they name the child Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana.
Messi is 39 now, the most decorated footballer in history — the second-highest goal- scorer in history, its all-time leading assist provider, the leading goal-scorer and assist provider in World Cup history, a record eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, winner of 10 La Liga and four Champions League titles with Barcelona, a two-time Copa America champions (2021 and 2024), and World Cup champion with Argentina in 2022.
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Yamal joined La Masia at seven. At 15, he became the youngest to make his Barca senior team debut in more than a century. At 17, he was the youngest Ballon d’Or nominee. He already has a La Liga title, is Spain’s youngest-ever player and goal-scorer. His vision, creativity, age, speed, and dribbling proclivities are reminiscent of…yes, that Barca player who bathed him when he was five months old.
Now, for the first time, Yamal and Messi face each other on the field — in a World Cup final. Like a Christopher Nolan film, where time bends, warps, and turns on itself.
Messi and his Argentina teammates, most of whom were on the field for the 2022 triumph, turned back the clock to play football for the ages at this tournament. They turned hopeless situations into wins, though their Round of 16 victory over Egypt remains tainted by suspect refereeing and VAR decisions that were harsh on the African side. If age has robbed Messi of the burst of pace that once helped him breeze past defenders, he has given the football world an invaluable lesson in what magic can be wrought through positioning, finding gaps, accuracy on the ball, and an undimmed creative vision for passes and movement. Heading into the final, the Argentine is joint top-scorer at the World Cup along with Kylian Mbappe, and second only to Michael Olise in assists.
He has whipped in 41 crosses into the box — second-highest at this tournament — most of which were perfectly weighted and consummately curved, like the one that sunk England in the semifinal, arcing around seven English players before meeting Lautaro Martinez’s head.
He also shares the lead for attempts to break through a defensive line with… Yamal.
No player has dribbled past opponents more times than Yamal, and Messi is a close fourth on that list. Argentina have shown throughout this tournament that they simply don’t give up. Messi still possesses the ability to create a match-changing moment out of nowhere. That the players around him — from Enzo Fernandes to Rodrigo De Paul to Alex Mac Allister — have raised their game to carry the team into a second consecutive World Cup final. No team at this tournament has displayed greater courage under fire or the ability to execute their skills perfectly at the moment of highest stress than Argentina.
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It is only fitting then that they meet the tournament’s best-drilled, most disciplined, cohesive team of the tournament in the final.
No team has dominated possession at this World Cup like Spain, reflecting a philosophy deeply ingrained in Spanish football culture at all levels. It’s how they won the 2010 World Cup, with a team full of players who were press-proof, capable of weaving the most complicated tapestry of short and long passes, with almost everything filtering through Sergio Busquets, till they had bamboozled the opposition and found the goal.
This Spanish team is doing something very similar, with Rodri assuming Busquets role while building his own legend in that position. His 694 passes at the tournament — the most by any player since statistical data collection started in 1966 — have been completed at an extraordinary 93% accuracy.
Rodri is everywhere on the field — he has covered almost 84km at this World Cup, more than any other player. Yet the entire Spanish team shines when it comes to passing the ball, whether short or long, defensive or creative. Centre-backs Aymeric Laporte and Pau Cubarsi rank second and third for completed passes. Cubarsi, only 19, is the most accurate passer at this World Cup with a 97% success rate while attempting 566 passes.
Spain barely ever lose the ball, one reason why they have conceded just once all tournament. Even when they lose the ball, they are the quickest to win it back.
They are an intimidating team. If you can’t take the ball away from them, how do you beat them? France’s extraordinary attack had no answer in the semi-finals.
Perhaps the world’s greatest footballer will conjure a way on what may be his final bow for Argentina. The baby he once bathed now stands in his way.
