The World Cup final is Messi v Yamal, master v successor, a planetary alignment | OneFootball

It’s in elevated moments like this, when all the usual talk in football takes a more metaphysical hue, that even the most single-minded players can’t help looking for signs and omens.

In Spanish training, where Lamine Yamal is “wrapped in cotton” due to recent injuries, they have still been noting every turn and finish in training. “That’s how you’re going to win the World Cup final.”

It’s quite a prospect to consider.

With Argentina, there has meanwhile been more wistful commentary about how this is Lionel Messi’s first appearance at the Metlife Stadium since the 2016 Copa America final. At that point, his entire international legacy was completely different. Argentina had lost a third tournament final in three years and it looked like it was never going to happen. Messi himself seemed to confirm that as he announced his retirement. “I’ve done all I can, I’ve been in four finals and it hurts not to be a champion.”

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Lionel Messi (left) and Lamine Yamal will clash in the World Cup final (Getty Images)

Everyone could see exactly how much it hurt, from a widely-published photo of Messi in pained tears.

Now, with the World Cup having since become the great affirmation of the Argentine’s talent rather than his great bane, there’s another photo being reproduced everywhere. It is of course that of a 20-year-old Messi bathing a six-month-old Yamal back in 2007.

The image, the product of a Unicef promotional campaign that Yamal’s family won a raffle for, is such an astonishing coincidence that you would have trouble believing it’s real, were it not now so ubiquitous.

It may even be perfect given what this World Cup final offers, beyond the uplifting opportunity to lift the trophy: this is not just the first time these Barcelona prodigies have met, but the first time the World Cup has potentially had such a clear passing-of-the-torch moment.

There’s never really been anything like it in 22 previous finals, not even an established Kylian Mbappe facing Messi four years ago. That was more akin to 1974, when Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer met, having each won the Ballon d’Or over the previous two years. There was also Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane in 1998 after they’d been one and three in the voting for the same award, but the narratives weren’t even about that.

None of the stories really compare.

The coincidence is so profound that there’s almost a sense of planetary alignment, even if that is tempered by the feeling of this being so ideal for a World Cup in the world capital of celebrity entertainment.

The very extremities at play emphasise this, with a 39-year-old against a teenager. It is master against successor. You can’t quite call it master against apprentice since Yamal is already a star in his own right – and that 2007 photo was actually one of the few times they have even met.

Messi is said to not even think about his potential successors. He just doesn’t see things in that way, a little like the rivalry with England. In any case, there have been so many potentials he’s seen off, until we finally had Yamal.

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A 16-year-old Yamal winning the best young player award at the 2024 Ballon d’Or (AFP/Getty)

As was said in Barcelona when he started to break through, in almost mythic language, “there is another”.

Yamal doesn’t have Messi weigh over him in that way, either, because nothing fazes him. That was illustrated by how he immediately started illuminating major games as a 16-year-old.

All of this actually affords this final, and this meeting, a rare vitality. The stories of their World Cups and wider careers only play into that, as well as the grander themes of the tournament.

It has so far been a pity that we haven’t seen the best Yamal, but that could now offer opportunity, maybe even a better ending. The 19-year-old might not have defined this World Cup but he is determined to define its final.

There are other historical echoes there, which are all the more pointed when the Spanish camp have been keen to point out parallels with 2010. Back then, Andres Iniesta went into the competition badly struggling with injury, only to finally be set from the quarter-finals on. He then won the World Cup.

History beckons. Present realities also influence.

Yamal’s ongoing hamstring recovery has meant he hasn’t been able to maximise the freer role that Luis de la Fuente gives him, but the very fact Spain have a deeply more-defined tactical idea has equally ensured there isn’t the same dependence on him. He has still performed a crucial role, even if it is not Yamal performance as it could be.

The same could actually be said of Messi from a completely different perspective. This is not Messi as we’ve known him, and he’s still performed the crucial role.

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Messi notched both assists as Argentina beat England in the semi-finals (Getty)

Everything Argentina do is through him. It’s perhaps just as well the pressure of never winning went away with the last World Cup because, in purely tactical terms, they’ve never needed Messi more.

His ability to repeatedly deliver amid such demands has somehow only added another element to his legacy, following on from how the World Cup has ended up affording him his finest achievements – maybe a third Golden Ball, maybe a first Golden Boot, maybe a second winners’ medal – after it had once been the sad mark against him.

If 2022 was Messi’s equivalent of Muhammad Ali reclaiming the heavyweight title in 1974, this could be his Ali-Frazier II: the undisputed. Should Messi win, he might even eye Pele’s record of three in 2030. Why not when MLS preserves that preternatural technique?

And while Messi may still only lack this 2026 World Cup to truly give him a unique standing, Yamal arguably needs it to fully ascend, especially in the absence of a Champions League title.

Reference to the club game may bristle amid the purity of a World Cup final, but it remains remarkable how Barcelona have two such talents in quick succession.

It also shapes the teams’ matches in new ways. Whereas virtually every other Argentina match is singularly defined by Messi, and how the opposition simply must adapt to him, Lionel Scaloni now has to respond to Yamal.

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Yamal completely caught out Lucas Digne in the semi-finals, winning a penalty (Getty)

Both can just decide this final in an instant, with one instinctive run, regardless of how much the ball is kept away from them. Their very presence can provoke chaos, suddenly changing the very nature of the game, no matter what tactical shape it takes.

You could say it’s another remarkable coincidence that Barcelona do have both, but it isn’t. One of the biggest clubs in the world went and got a young Messi, while Yamal’s young family migrated to one of the wealthiest cities on the planet. He was spotted at the age of six, reflecting the rigour of Spanish scouting. In this case, you couldn’t miss him.

Their personal stories nevertheless bring another dimension.

Messi has a complicated history with Spain, given that he could have played for them, while his long residence there was once cast against him in Argentina. Yamal has meanwhile had to face the kind of dismally-racist discussion that comes with immigration, although that is also one area where he has marked himself out from Messi: Yamal is willing to speak out politically.

From that, it’s hard not to wonder what he thinks of some of these very same Argentine players singing chants deriding the African heritage of French players. It is partly applicable to him.

For now, in the build-up to the biggest game in football, both players are feeling a calm. It is a calm that only comes with this level of talent at this level of game, the awareness of the heights you can now go to. There have not been too many footballers who know what that is like.

There may never be another final like this one, which is so much about two players forever linked. One will enjoy the most perfect image of all: lifting the World Cup.