One of the big player backstories (thanks to Ari L. for this tipoff) circulating before the much-anticipated FIFA World Cup Final 2026 (which will be played relatively in our backyard in the NJ Meadowlands) is the fact that while this is the first game that Argentina’s Lionel Messi will play against Spain’s Lamine Yamal, it is not the first time they’ve met.
They “met” and were pictured together almost two decades ago, in a random sort of way, when Messi was starting up his storied career and Yamal was just an infant. It was a UNICEF charity photoshoot of prominent players with raffle-winners from the community, back when Messi played for Barcelona in Spain. The pictures were taken for a calendar, and this picture of Yamal as a baby in the blue bathtub with Lionel Messi, then an up and rising promising player.
(Personally, I’m rooting for Argentina and Messi. I know they’re the underdog this time, and Spain is the betting favorite, but Argentina – especially under Milei – has been far friendlier to Jews and Israel, Spain has not been a friend at all, in fact much worse. Spain and Argentina are polar opposites now when it comes to Israel. Messi himself has been to the Kotel, while Yamal seems to have been supporting the enemies of our people. But sports is sports, it’s a great outlet for players and fans alike, and for this rather focus on the derived message/lesson here than digging into their politics).
I can’t speak to the bathtub or what this picture signifies, but there’s gotta be a message in this “meeting up again”. TBH, I knew nothing of this myself, but a recent alum (Ari L.) alerted me to this picture and this backstory figuring I’d appreciate it for a Dbvar Torah message to be extracted/learned from it. First let me say this: Regardless of whatever message, the biggest message for me in all this is how this alum thought of, remembered me, and reached out to me in this way about it. That meant the world to me, and for me that’s the best part!
But he wanted me to derive some message from this prior “meetup” and them coming together again on soccer/futbal’s biggest stage.
Here are a few ideas/lessons/connections:
JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS
The verse says that he recognized them, but they did not recognize him. Why not? Wouldn’t brothers recognize each other? A few answers are given: He was younger than they were (as Yamal is significantly younger than Messi). He left them before his beard grew in, now with a full beard they didn’t recognize him. Another answer is that they sold him as a slave. In their wildest imagination they never would have imagined him as the ruling viceroy of Egypt, so they couldn’t even envision him in that spot.
Either way, the last time Messi met Yamal he was a baby in a bathtub. Cute and all, but not a world-class soccer player. Very often we see people at early stages of life, or career, or personal growth, and that’s just how we know them. But people do not stay the same! Twenty years later can be a totally different person than the one we saw years earlier. Don’t freeze the frame on people. Allow space for your estimation of them to expand and grow as they do. People will often surprise you! This often happens to us over the course of four years with a student and also after meeting alumni after years have gone by. This is especially true of teachers and students, parents and children etc.
That cute baby in the blue bathtub is now one of the best soccer/futbol players in the world!
IF YOU MET SOMEONE ONCE, YOU’LL MEET THEM AGAIN
There is a Yiddish folk-saying, (that the Rebbe writes he heard from his father-in-law the Friediker Rebbe in the name of the Baal Shem Tov!) that “if you meet someone once, you’ll meet them again.”
I’d like to look into this further, perhaps there are sources that explain the meaning or purpose and lesson of this expression.
But for now, perhaps, just a thought. Everything we experience is for a reason, certainly an encounter between two people. You’ll meet again is because there’s a To Be Continued in that purpose, there’s more to that initial connection (no matter how fleeting). It’s not just one and done, but there’s some unfinished business, there’s still more to accomplish.
REPEATING IT TWICE
Back to the biblical Joseph. Remember when he interpreted the Pharaoh’s dreams? One dream was about stalks of grain and one about the fat cows and skinny cows. The verse says: “The repetition of the dreams was a divine emphasis as to their pertinency”. Meeting a second time can emphasize and reinforce things.
O’HENRY’S “AFTER TWENTY YEARS”
This meeting up again after nearly twenty years, you just can’t help but think of the shirt story by O’Henry titled, “After 20 years”. We did a Passover post on this once, how much can change in our lives in twenty years! Where will we be, what will be our story, in twenty years from now?