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.
