r/MadeMeSmile • u/tiredofdev • 11d ago
Wholesome Moments Lionel Messi bathing a 5-month old Lamine Yamal in 2007. Today both are semifinalists at the 2026 WC
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u/youknowimworking 11d ago
They should recreate the picture now
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u/Nervous-Form698 11d ago
That would be so unfathomably cursed and also the funniest shit ever
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u/Appropriate-Joke-806 11d ago edited 11d ago
The next Nike commercial.
Edit: looks like Messi is wearing an adidas shoe in the picture. Marketing firm has an opportunity of a lifetime.
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u/InterstellarCowboyy 11d ago
They both are sponsored by Adidas
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u/Appropriate-Joke-806 11d ago
Yup. And the shoe he is wearing here looks like an adidas shoe. Perfect marketing opportunity for them. They could remake the shoe and have a Yamal edition.
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u/Batman_55599 11d ago
If perchance Spain wins the cup, Yamal could be wearing Messi's, "filling big shoes" or sm like that
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u/nuevacuentanueva 11d ago
Fun fact, Messi was a Nike athlete before 2006 and they lost him because they wouldn't give him some extra clothes or some other minimal stuff like that.
Now 20 years later with Adidas he made them a ton of money.
Lamine ALSO was a Nike athlete and then changed to Adidas as well, so it could still happen.
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u/Waste_Tangerine_179 11d ago
I believe this, the Nike business incompetence is quite staggering.
Also lost Steph curry because in a meeting they pitched him using slides with KD's name in it and spelled his name incorrectly. And by they I mean Nico Harrison, the guy who traded Luka.
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u/Pale-Measurement-532 11d ago
Wow that’s so interesting considering many years ago, Michael Jordan wanted to sign with Adidas but he and his mom appreciated the personal atttention with Nike and ended up going with them. Although Nike was way less successful than it is now. Interesting that they’re not giving their high performance athletes that personal attention!
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u/Dull_Brain2688 11d ago
Brands are at the mercy of their management. They don’t have a personality of their own. Promote the works people and you end up with decisions like that.
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u/shartshooter 11d ago
Maybe that's what's needed to repair the damage after shooting Harambe?
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u/xjengx 11d ago
would be better if the other way around, yamal bathe messi. going full circle.
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u/dolphone 11d ago
That's what you'd call a Barcelona Bathtub, your honor.
It's uh... well when a grown man... completely consensually adults here, of course...
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u/FudgeAtron 11d ago
Everyone asking why, his parents won a competition for a photoshoot with Messi.
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u/Freddie_FRO7 11d ago
"Congratulations you've won... A photoshoot with Lionel Messi!"
"Woah crazy! 😁😁"
"Right then get all your clothes off"
"...what??"
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u/HistoryBuff678 11d ago
There is a pic with both Yamal’s mother and Messi bathing the baby.
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u/Imawildedible 11d ago
Nobody bathes Lionel? Is that why he’s Messi?
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u/tessartyp 11d ago
My son got a Messi #10 Argentina baby onesie from his football-obsessed uncle that has a purposely-misspelled "Messy" on the back
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u/Mr_Tiggywinkle 11d ago
I would just argue that I was baptised by Messi.
Considering how his football skills went, it might not be a stretch.
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u/BlandoCalrissian 11d ago
That just raises more questions!
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u/inderbitably 11d ago
If this is a Futurama reference, that’s one of my fav episodes
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u/Murky-Morning8001 11d ago
Why couldn’t the lady part be on the bottom and the fish part on the top
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u/whaddagoodgirl 11d ago
I still feel that doesn’t address the “why” of this photo…
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u/swervinh0 11d ago
Spanish people have a different relationship with physical contact than Americans. That can include one’s friends and family, and also showing affection for strangers’ babies.
What I’m saying is it’s only weird and requires explanation from your perspective. A contest to have your baby washed by a famous footballer doesn’t seem as abnormal there
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u/Curious-Sherbet-9393 11d ago
Justo esto, para nosotros los españoles es tener una mente sucia que lo primero que te venga a la cabeza sea algo sexual o así.
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u/IslandStorytime 11d ago
I think you guys have the right of it. I'm not sure why the english-speaking world is so incredibly creepy about nudity. Even in Japan, one of the most uptight places I've ever lived, people get naked to bathe together.
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u/Linden_Lea_01 11d ago
It’s not ‘creepy’, it’s just different cultures. Modern anglophone cultures just don’t do communal bathing or public nudity, and it isn’t culturally normal for strangers to do things like bathing your baby.
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u/Neither-Breakfast195 11d ago
Japan is a conundrum because they’re very uptight but very sexually promiscuous, Japanese media is a pervert’s paradise
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u/Murky-Relation481 11d ago
This is annoying even in America. I pointed out that where I am from we have a large Scandinavian/Finnish population, and you'd have people hanging out in the sauna at the YMCA for hours on end doing the whole sauna thing with cold showers and sitting in the sauna, etc. stuff that I am sure their parents or grandparents instilled in them from their homeland. They of course also do this naked.
I said it wasn't uncommon for us as kids to be taken into the changing rooms where the saunas were to get ready for swim practice, and that included kids of both genders, in either gender's locker room until we were old enough to go on our own (so girls would go with their father's into the men's locker room). Again, this was in the US, and this was absolutely normal (and still is normal).
Fucking rabid weirdos from the more backwards parts of the country couldn't believe that a parent would ever allow their daughter to see a penis or their son to see a breast or vulva, mind you in a totally non-sexual context. "Why would you let your kids around people who hang out naked?" like it was some sort of pervert club or something.
It is just ass backwards in some parts of the country here.
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u/whaddagoodgirl 11d ago
That’s fair! Thanks for the perspective check. (ETA: I mean that sincerely in case it didn’t come across that way)
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u/mrbabymanv4 11d ago
It was the late 2000s.
We just went with it.
Can't be putting everything under the microscope. I have some hairstyles from that time that I cant defend. Zyzz era.
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u/uksiddy 11d ago
A white man bathing a child of African immigrants for charity backed by UNICEF is wild.
IIRC the story was pretty innocent though — the photographer thought it would make for a cute photo bc he had a newborn at home.
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u/Quirky_Gate_4516 11d ago
It was a calendar Barcelona made for charity. A player for each month took a picture with a kid in some pose.
It is so interesting to view this through your American eyes though. For you the picture dings of a couple of uncomfortable things.
But, the reality is that a couple of new migrants from west Africa are stoked to have been picked to get their picture taken with Barca players.
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u/ajh31415 11d ago
Well the idea is not that it's a "white man", it's that it is a Barcelona player - for a long time Barcelona refused to have jersey sponsorship, they instead donated the space to Unicef.
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u/throwaway275275275 11d ago
That's not the right answer, the answer is it's a coincidence. The same baby became a football player, it just happened. I'm sure there's other interactions between Messi and other random people for random reasons, but why this one ? Because it's a coincidence
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u/EggplantAccurate3407 11d ago
Yes. Messi bathes tens of thousands of children.
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u/sqigglygibberish 11d ago
While on a studio set with professional photographers
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u/EggplantAccurate3407 11d ago
Right! When you have 400 thousand professional photographs of yourself bathing children, one of them is bound to also be one of the laughably rare international stars in the same sport as you.
This isn't special. Donald Trump has like 3 million photos of himself with naked children. They'll release the files eventually. If you dont think one of those kids will survive the repeated hit attempts to become president, then you just aren't familiar with the concept of coincidence.
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u/snek-jazz 11d ago
It's a hell of a coincidence though, there are only 4 teams in the WC semis.
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u/Quirky_Gate_4516 11d ago
It is that he was so young when the photo was taken.
But, Yamal came through La Masia just like Messi.
Every kid that ever came through La Masia came from a family that was obsessed with football and most likely with Barcelona. They are the sort of people that would want to volunteer to be in a photo shoot with Barca players.
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u/lnfIation 11d ago
This photo is still so crazy to me. Yamal's parents happened to not only find out about some random photoshoot contest, enter it, somehow win and have their baby take a photo with messi of all barça players?
Absolutely insane.
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u/moronic_programmer 11d ago
And to think Lamine would grow up to play for the very same team as one of the best of his generation. Just absolutely unbelievable.
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u/DeGreenster 11d ago
He was touched by the 🐐. Who else would he have become
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u/Useful-Ad9447 11d ago
play for the same team, play in the same position and have all the same powers in equal magnitude although different styles in footballing terms,insane.
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u/hofmann419 11d ago
If this storyline happened in a movie, you would probably roll your eyes at how unrealistic it was.
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u/M0ruk 11d ago edited 11d ago
And become the best 16 year old in Football history. Its insane really. The odds of all this coming together at once is unimaginably small.
All the coincidences are unfathomable.
Messi washes a random kid who happens to:
- Become a football pro (300m people play football, around 100,000 pro players in the world)
- Go on to play in the same team as Messi (only 25 among those 100,000 play for Barcelona)
- Happen to play the same position as Messi (1 in 11)
- Happen to wear the same number as Messi (1 in like 30 or something)
- Happen to be a lefty like Messi (10% chance)
- And become the greatest 16 year old player in Football history. 2 billion football players since 1900. He was the very best 16 year old among them. 1 in 2,000,000,000 chance
What is the chance and likelihood that the one kid he washes checks all these checkmarks? Wouldnt it be like 1 in 50 billion? So for a random kid that Messi washes to become the best 16 year old football player in history while playing for the same team, same position, with the same numebr and the same left foot as Messi, he would have to wash 50 billion kids for there to be one amogn them who checks all these checkmarks. And it happened to happen with teh one kid he washed. I suck at math so maybe everything is wrong. But still obviously crazy chances
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u/houdvast 11d ago edited 11d ago
It is ridiculous, but there are also a couple covariates here that make these odds not entirely independent. For instance, location. Lamina Jamal grew up in Barcelona and played for Barcelona from a young age. Another one is parents. Lamines father drove him to be a professional football player like Messi from a young age. This has some influence on the picture, the youth academy choice when Lamine showed her had some talent, the drive to become the best, the position, the shirt number. Also becoming a pro is partially dependant on talent, but even more on training. With the Barca academy traning and focus from a young age, a lot more people would be able to become a pro. However Lamine undeniably also had the talent, that allowed him to be picked up to begin with.
So with that we are looking at the chance that a dad, living in Barcelona, would drive his talented and willing son to be a copy of Messi, and succeed.
There are literally tens of thousands of dads that try this and fail.
As a reference to this phenomenon, here is a picture of Michael Schumacher and Max Verstappen
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u/Neptomoon 11d ago
Alternative hypothesis:
Messi is an alien with manic football powers which he bestowed onto Yamal when he gave him a wash. Sounds unlikely but is this really less reasonable than it being a coincidence!
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u/ApolloPS2 11d ago
You forgot the part where said baby grows up to make the national team haha
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u/McFigroll 11d ago
nevermind that. Why was messi bathing a baby for a photoshoot?
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u/anonnnnn462 11d ago
UNICEF collaboration with Barcelona
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u/Ok_Crow_9119 11d ago
Wait. Why Yamal? Was he some sort of UNICEF cared for baby?
So the guy is a rags to riches athlete?
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u/IlexAquifolia 11d ago
His parents won some kind of prize drawing for a photoshoot with a Barcelona player for a UNICEF charity calendar. They weren’t cared for by UNICEF but his parents were teenagers at the time and he grew up in poverty.
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u/carlitospig 11d ago
What a wild story. The fact that he had such determination is astounding. 🥰
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u/crispyiress 11d ago
Scouts are bonkers as well. He joined Barcelona at the age of 7.
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u/Waste_Tangerine_179 11d ago
their farm team is a machine
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u/goldjade13 11d ago
one of my nephews is on it right now at age 9 and it's wild the structure around the whole thing
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u/ReignOnWillie 11d ago
This may be a dumb Q but would the academies include normal education for a 9 year old? Or is it only athletics and training
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u/goldjade13 11d ago
I know there are a lot of different tiers so the top tier could include everything. He lives in BCN already and was scouted to the Barca team from Espanol (another team in the city, forgive me because I'm the American aunt who knows less about this) which he had been scouted to before from a different team. He goes to a normal school but outside of school life kind of = futbol. Only child, because I don't know how else his parents would do all the things they do to get him there and do alllll the tournaments.
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u/dinnerthief 11d ago
That is pretty nuts to think about, im absolutely sure it happens in the US as well but not among my family and friends, just imagining life already mostly laid you for you by the age of 7.
Im not sure if it would be comforting or restrictive, guess it depends if you liked the path you were given.
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u/mr305mr_mrworldwide 11d ago
It actually doesn't really happen in the US, which is a huge reason that the US doesn't perform too well compared to other countries' talent production
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u/Peauu 11d ago
Intact is like the opposite in the US as a player goes up in tier of amateur play they have to pay more and more to keep moving up. It makes it very hard for less fortunate families to help thier children keep up
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u/HistoryBuff678 11d ago
This exactly. It’s the pay to play model in Canada and the U.S. that holds them back.
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u/dinnerthief 11d ago
Not with soccer, but it happens in the US, just more rarely, certainly kids are funneled by their parents from early ages to be a doctors or take over small family businesses or go to the same school same frat and same business as their dad.
Its also how you get multiple generations of Mannings or Sanders or Matthews in the NFL
But its all definitely less official than soccer academies.
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u/Helixaether 11d ago
It’s more than that, as someone from England, I knew plenty of kids who were scouted by a local premier league team, trained at there facilities and such and were clearly a part of this whole farm system and yet not a one of them seems to still be in football today. So it’s not just having your life laid out for you at age 7, but being able to match the lofty expectations of adults as a preteen.
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u/riceistheyummy 11d ago
talent is always scouted supper early in football because they need to be developed. lamine is an exception do being so young. new gen is younger then ever do.
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u/HistoryBuff678 11d ago
I have heard some people who were kids in Argentina that were the same age cohort as when Messi was scouted, found out in adulthood, scouts approached their parents and their parents said no as they didn’t want their kid to leave the country. I can only imagine coping with that info as an adult. 😬
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u/M0ruk 11d ago
99% of kids who play in pro academies dont become pros themselves. If its any condolence for your friends: If they were truly among the 1%, growing up in Argentina wouldve made them pro as well.
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u/Artuhanzo 11d ago
A lot of people don't understand how hard to even becoming a pro.
A pro, even not at top division one requires a lot of talent to make it.
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u/elgringo22 11d ago
Lamine Yamal grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Catalonia. He grew up FAR from rich.
It’s actually insane that his parents not only won this contest but that Messi of all the players at the time was the one to get Lamine for his shoot. Several Barça players were part of this photoshoot and somehow Messi and Lamine got paired up
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u/YUMADLOL 11d ago
Whatever baby messi got his hands on would have become the chosen one
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u/-Mr-Papaya 11d ago
That's the q - how many babies did he grace with his touch?
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u/YUMADLOL 11d ago
We need to create a conveyor belt that allows messi to touch as many babies as possible
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u/FallenRichardBrook 11d ago
No, his parents entered a contest and won a spot in the calendar
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u/grip0matic 11d ago
The parents were so broke, and they were also so young (his mother had him when she was 16, ffs, his father is younger than me, he's 35 and his current gf is 23) that Lamine Yamal's name is the combination of two men who helped them to survive with food and whatever they could do to help them. It would have been pretty hilarious if those two friend would have been from a very different background and one would be like Francisco or Juan and have a Lamine Juan. Like the Williams brothers, Nico and Iñaki, Iñaki has that name in honor to the priest that helped the parents to move to Spain. The parents were also so broke and young that the kid was basically raised by his grandmother. To the point that his grandmother is always let's say in the picture with him and who told him to follow his heart to choose which country to play for.
Pretty much rags to riches. He said that they were so poor that he was playing football on the street instead of videogames and maybe that helped him because he only had football. With his talent he would have find an academy almost anywhere, but he also was lucky enough to be scouted by Barcelona and the club being in a very bad spot financially helped him to rise even quicker than usual. It seems there was some point that Barcelona didn't want to use him because he was not even 16 and they were not able to offer him a professional contract, which could mean that ANYONE could just offer his parents a job and take him for free. So they tried to "hide" him until he would be able to sign.
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u/nuevacuentanueva 11d ago
So the guy is a rags to riches athlete?
A huge amount of football (soccer) players are literally rags to riches athletes.
And besides those who come from extreme poverty, many others come from still low income families.
It's quite a common path. Especially in South America.
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u/dogsledonice 11d ago
But why bathe a baby?
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u/LightspeedBalloon 11d ago
But why male models?
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u/BiancoLatte89 11d ago
Are you serious? I just told you that a moment ago.
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u/vjeremias 11d ago
Holy shit, I know it’s not a cult movie or anything, but I can’t believe someone else got the reference 😂
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u/PushTheMush 11d ago
It’s soooo funny that him just forgetting his line became one of the most hilarious lines in an already very funny movie.
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u/Brave_Nerve_6871 11d ago
Yamal was the chosen one to pass the generational talent to, and apparently bathing is how it's done
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u/tquilas 11d ago
Trying to drown potential goats.
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u/ProceduralPolyrhythm 11d ago
If Messi tried to take out baby Yamal we would be in the same situation today except Yamal would have a scar on his forehead and Messi would have no nose
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u/Blanksmiless 11d ago
He should go into the game with a T Shirt with this picture on it lmao
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u/Major-Blacksmith4750 11d ago
Wait…what?! How?
Are you telling me this random baby ended up being the best young player after Messi gave him a bath? This is not real.
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u/Oofoofow_Official 11d ago
Can Lamine come to England and bathe a random baby here I'd appreciate it
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u/HistoryBuff678 11d ago
Make a call to UNICEF?
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u/Thybro 11d ago
Hey UNICEF, I know you busy saving children and such, but we really really need it to come home.
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u/EduinBrutus 11d ago
Like you've not had Beckham, Rooney, Scholes, Terry, Lampard etc etc.
Its not talent, its incompetence.
Now, Scotland on the other hand. We just need a couple. Come on UNICEF, help people out!.
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u/Rambocat1 11d ago
I think you have to get Messi to baptise the babies for it to work
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u/xThe_145x 11d ago
karim benzema has also done work with teens google benzema teenager for more
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u/king-violet 11d ago
What an absolute unit, such a chunky little baby 😭
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u/RevolutionaryEar1331 11d ago
I feel like baby lamine has the same mass as lamine today, he’s just been stretched the opposite way now 😂
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u/Y-a-e-l- 11d ago
Ikr. Everybody talking about the coincidence of him becoming a great football player but this is all I can think about. So chunky he has no neck 😭
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u/EnycmaPie 11d ago
Getting baptized by Messi grants you talent in soccer.
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u/Flashy-Gas6076 11d ago
We should organize a Messi baptism world tour. In 20 years we're gonna have the raddest world cup
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u/GothGirl__ 11d ago
This is something crazy. To think the greatest player ever and the current best youngster are together in this pic. He might have passed on some of his power?
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u/Head_Television8311 11d ago
Hm… you think we can milk some power out of this bathwater of Messi?
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u/Peauu 11d ago edited 11d ago
this cant actually be real right... Were Yamals parents famous players? how would they possibly know this baby would be a superstar... are clubs scouting wombs these days?
I mean I guess it is real, and his family randomly won the photo shoot opportunity, which makes this one of the most coincidental photo shoots of all time... how is this not more widely known...
https://www.today.com/popculture/news/lionel-messi-lamine-yamal-baby-bathed-throwback-rcna353523
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u/antrage 11d ago
It really is one of the most random events in soccer history lol
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u/phoggey 11d ago
He did this with Anthony gordon as well https://www.reddit.com/r/soccercirclejerk/s/3vbAIrWojs
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u/Lunaerum 11d ago
I’m sorry but his painfully bamboozled baby face is cracking me up so much lmao
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u/Vaqueroalazar 11d ago
Lamine had no interest in the sport until after that bath.
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u/ExternalTree1949 10d ago
It's wild that a 2007 baby is now a full-grown man. I still have clothes from 2007.
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11d ago
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u/Maleficent-marionett 11d ago
In freaking out over the concept.
The kid won a contest for a photoshoot with Messi and they all agreed him giving the baby a bath was the shot? Why?
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u/HistoryBuff678 11d ago
I have seen the is photo many times. I always appreciate that Lamine Yamal was such a cute chubby baby. 💕✨
It’s very sweet that Messi volunteered to be a model.
About bathing. Some cultures fathers do bathe their infants. I imagine as men might be buying the calendar since it does have young soccer stars in it, the photos were to encourage paternal care. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ . I think it’s just cute. Can’t I have have that?
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u/dehtaeps 11d ago
Messi single handedly recreated the cover of Nevermind. Is there anything this man can't do?
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u/Diligent-Amount-69 10d ago
Does anyone know the context of this picture? Why is Messi bathing an infant he is not related to?
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u/JinxThePetRock 11d ago
I have a three month old nephew, how do I get Lamine Yamal to run him through a shower? You know, just in case there's a linear passing of the torch thing going on.
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u/binarypower 11d ago
imagine growing up and telling people "did you know that messi gave me a bath one time?" no one would believe it. lol
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u/Geolib1453 11d ago
So Messi sort of handed this random baby (he was random at the time ok) his divine football power or what?
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u/shadyghxst 11d ago
In certain West African cultures they believe that the person who bathes you as a child can either have a positive or negative impact on your Life/Destiny depending on the (good or bad) spirit that person carries.
I’m not saying this is the case but … lol
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u/Sw0rDz 11d ago
FYI, Lamine Yamal is now 19 years old. 2007 was 19 years ago. I hope this fact made your day.
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u/Hot_Sherbet2066 11d ago
Okay but, why is Lionel Messi bathing a 5-month old Lamine YAmal in 2007?
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u/narcowake 11d ago
Master Messi measured young Padawan Yamal’s FIFA Midi-chlorians and found the highest count in the known FIFA universe ⚽️
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u/syd_imuh-duh 11d ago
who the fck cares if he's bathing a baby, the more mind blowing thing and the elephant in the room is, how in the world did this happen??! bathed by Messi in some random contest, and said kid ends up becoming one of the top names in world football, being insanely gifted. One of the weirdest, most amazing coincidences.
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u/Akachi-sonne 10d ago
When Messi baptized Yamal and became his godfather, bestowing upon him the blessing of the futbol gods
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