Jack Tame: Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal – coincidences and destiny

What’s the biggest moment of serendipity or coincidence in your life?  

I can’t say I’ve had anything too spooky; a few random encounters that have made me think ‘whoa...’  

I was in Versailles in France, standing in a gift shop, perusing a bookshelf, when I realised the person standing immediately next to me was an old friend from Christchurch. Neither of us had any idea the other was in Europe, let alone France, let alone the palace. A minute or two either way and we would have been ships in the night. There must be so many of those narrowly missed connections in life.  

Certainly no coincidence or serendipity in my life can come anywhere near that of the world’s greatest football player and the young man whom many people believe is the closest thing to his heir apparent.  

The photo has been everywhere over the last few days, but if you haven’t yet seen it... it’s a doozy. In 2007, Lionel Messi, a young star on Barcelona’s globally-famous football team, was roped in to a photoshoot for UNICEF. Lamine Yamal’s parents entered a competition in the local newspaper to win a photoshoot for their baby with a famous sports star. The rest is history. 

In the photos, Messi cares for a chubby little baby. In one photo he gives him a bubble bath. In another, he cradles the baby in his arms. It’s a bit awkward and dated. Apparently as a 20-year-old, Messi had absolutely no idea how to hold a baby and you definitely get that impression in the photos. But it wouldn’t be notable today except for the fact that the 5-month-old little chubster in the photo is now also the star of Barcelona’s globally famous football team, and that 19 years since they met for the first time, these two extraordinary stars of the world’s most popular sport are about to play each other for the very first time in the Football World Cup Final.  

What are the chances? Honestly. Just try and consider a fraction of the different variables that need to line up to make Monday morning happen.  

First of all, you need the photoshoot. It needs to be with a Barcelona player. Not just any player, but the player who will in years to come be widely considered the greatest to ever take a football field. Then you need to win the raffle, not just with any kid, but with a kid who will also become a professional football player. Not just any player, mind you, but the wunderkind of the Spanish national team, one of the world’s best-known players in the best-known sport, and a star of the very same club as the guy who held him in the photo.  

Then, the two have to make their respective national teams in the same Football World Cup. One of them, as one of the youngest players in the tournament, the other as one of the oldest. Those two teams need to be on separate sides of the draw. They need to both make the final. You thought Lotto’s had long odds? The likelihood of all of these things happening is absolutely preposterous.   

Because I’m a total nerd, I follow a subreddit on social media where people pose silly maths questions, and members of the community show their workings to try and solve them. I knew as soon as Argentina qualified for the final and the photo of Messi and Yamal started trending once again, there’d be a robust debate about the statistical probability of these events. While all the posters agree there are too many variables to get a perfect answer, the best efforts this week put the probability at somewhere between one in 59 billion, and one in three quadrillion. 

It makes you think that little bit harder about the random encounters in your own life. Who knows if that person you randomly bump into and almost immediately forget, could in years to come, be one of the most important people in your life?   

The photographer who shot Messi and Yamal almost two decades ago was interviewed about the experience this week. It’s hard to disagree with his take. As the two stars of his photoshoot prepare to meet once again and face off in the biggest stage in sport, he was asked for his thoughts: “a true miracle of destiny”.