From a 19-year-old photo to a World Cup final: Messi and Yamal's incredible story PHOTO

It will also mark the conclusion of an incredible, almost movie-like story that began exactly 19 years ago.

Social media exploded after ESPN and numerous global media outlets brought attention once again to the iconic photo from 2007.

The image shows a then 20-year-old Lionel Messi bathing a four-month-old baby — Lamine Yamal, the boy who years later would become one of the biggest stars in world football.

What appeared at the time to be a charming moment is now considered one of the most extraordinary coincidences in sports history.

The circumstances surrounding the photo’s creation are filled with a series of events that seem as if they had been written in advance.

It all began in December 2007, when the Catalan newspaper “Sport”, in cooperation with Barcelona and UNICEF, launched a charity calendar project.

The idea was simple — to photograph the club’s stars at the time with young babies and use the calendar to raise funds for humanitarian causes.

UNICEF spent several months selecting families from Catalonia who were part of its social programmes.

To ensure the selection was completely fair, a lottery was held among the interested parents. By a twist of fate, the name of Lamine Yamal’s family was drawn.

But the incredible coincidences did not end there.

When the parents arrived with their baby at the Camp Nou dressing room, nobody knew which footballer little Lamine would be photographed with.

Fate decided that he would be paired with a young Lionel Messi, a player who was already showing signs that he would become one of the greatest of all time.

Photographers Joan Monfort and Oriol Canals captured the moment when Messi, somewhat awkwardly, bathed the baby in a blue plastic tub.

No one could have imagined at the time that he was holding a child who, less than two decades later, would stand opposite him fighting for the world crown.

Years later, when Lamine Yamal began breaking records in the Barcelona and Spain shirts, his father shared the photo with the caption: “The beginning of two legends.”