The World Cup face-off between Messi and Yamal was always meant to be and I cant wait to watch it play out like a movie finale

Whoa, baby!On Sunday, Spain will take on Argentina in the World Cup final at Metlife Stadium.But was this showdown eerily foreshadowed nearly 20 years ago, when a young FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi held and bathed a then chunky baby Lamine Yamal for a charity UNICEF calendar shoot?Did the soccer gods set this table? And how did a series of incredible images from 2007 prove so prescient?It all started with a simple Spanish newspaper raffle to find local Catalonia babies to pose for the charity calendar with players from FC Barcelona.A 6-month-old Lamine Yamal was one of the 12 chosen.Of all the featured players — including, reportedly, Ronaldinho and legendary defender Carles Puyol and future FC Barcelona manager Xavi Hernández — he was matched with Messi.Chosen by chance or fate? We’ll never know.

In 2023, a 15-year-old Yamal first took the field for Barcelona.He only missed playing with Messi by two years, as the latter left for Paris Saint-Germain and, now, Inter Miami.Making this World Cup final even more exciting: It will be the first time that Yamal, 19, and Messi, 39, have ever played against each other.The charming calendar photos brought a whole other layer to the Spanish phenom’s emergence.

Was there some sort of flow or transfer of powers from Messi to this baby, who would grow up to become an international superstar even before his braces were removed?It’s not the only wacky photographic or video evidence of future athletes interacting with other pros.US swimmer Katie Ledecky shared a video of herself as a 2-year-old playing peekaboo with Michael Jordan in a suite at a Capitals game — perhaps an early christening of her elite athleticism, which would debut at the London Olympics when she was only 15.There’s also an old photo of a 10-year-old Lindsey Vonn meeting her idol Picabo Street at a Minneapolis ski shop in 1995.And we’ve all seen the adorable image of a young Patrick Mahomes shagging fly balls with the Mets’ Mike Hampton i...