When Lamine Yamal embraced a tearful Lionel Messi at the final whistle of Monday’s World Cup final, it looked and felt symbolic, a passing of the torch played out in real time, under floodlights, in front of a world that had spent weeks anticipating exactly this moment without knowing it would arrive this way.
Messi, at 39, gazed long and hard at the ranks of Argentina supporters packed into MetLife Stadium as they sang his name, perhaps aware it might be the last time he would take such adoration at a World Cup. It was Yamal, two decades his junior, who stepped in to offer the greatest Argentine icon consolation before the pair fell into each other’s arms, Barcelona’s current number 10 embracing the man who made the shirt legendary.
It was a striking counterpoint to the photograph that had resurfaced in the buildup to this final, of a 20 year old Messi bathing a five month old Yamal during a charity shoot in September 2007, the two of them posing for a calendar raffle in Mataro that nobody in the room could have known would still be circulating two decades later. The baby in that picture is now a man, and by his own coach’s estimation, has effectively completed football at 19.
Yamal, who like Messi came through Barcelona’s academy, arrived at this tournament carrying a hamstring injury and finished it as the youngest player, at 19 years and six days, to win both a World Cup and a European Championship, having also lifted the Euros with Spain in 2024. He became just the third youngest player ever to feature in a World Cup final, behind only Pele in 1958 and Giuseppe Bergomi in 1982, and with teammate Pau Cubarsi also starting, at 19 years and 178 days, Spain became the first side in the competition’s history to field two teenagers in a single World Cup final.
Spain coach Luis de la Fuente praised his growth after the match. “He has played great football that will help him to mature and be even a greater footballer than he already is,” de la Fuente said. “He really sacrificed for the collective good. This is very important in my squad. In my opinion, he played a great World Cup.”
Yamal also showed a temperament to match his talent, repeatedly targeted by Argentina’s Nicolas Tagliafico throughout the final without ever reacting. Former England goalkeeper Joe Hart, working as a BBC pundit, was full of praise. “Not only did Lamine Yamal not react, he stood up to it,” Hart said. “He was not rattled and he did not back down. He had the entire team trying to smash him. He just stayed real cool. Lamine Yamal is 19 years old. What a beautiful day for him. He’s 19 and has completed football.”
For Messi, the numbers told their own story. He managed just 15 touches in the opening half, his lowest tally across three tournaments, and finished the match having failed to register a shot on target, his solitary blocked effort arriving deep into extra time. He became only the second player in history, after Brazil’s Cafu, to appear in three World Cup finals, and at 39 years and 25 days is the second oldest finalist on record, behind only Italy’s Dino Zoff in 1982.
He did not dispute the result afterwards. “They were better, to be honest,” Messi said. “We lost the game, and we accept that. That doesn’t mean that we will forget everything we’ve done so far, so I’d like to thank my people, my players and the country.”
Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni, visibly emotional when asked whether this had been Messi’s final World Cup appearance, said the veteran’s legacy required no further validation regardless of the outcome. “I hope that everyone feels proud of him, of what he’s achieved, because he’s the best football player ever stepping foot on a pitch,” Scaloni said.
There is something almost too neat about the symmetry of it all: the baby in the bathtub grown into the game’s brightest young star, embracing the man who once held him, on the very night that man’s own World Cup story appeared to close. Yamal did not overthink the connection when asked about the viral photograph earlier in the tournament. “I have grown a little, and Leo has too,” he said simply.
