Lionel Messi has spent two decades redefining the boundaries of football greatness, but even the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner had to do a double‑take after Argentina’s 3‑0 friendly win over Iceland on Tuesday.
As the players filed off the Jordan‑Hare Stadium pitch, Iceland’s No. 22 approached the Argentine captain for a quiet word in the tunnel. The conversation, which ended in laughter and an exchange of shirts, produced one of the most poignant images of this World Cup warm‑up – and a powerful reminder of Messi’s remarkable longevity.
The young Icelander was Daniel Tristán Guðjohnsen, a 20‑year‑old forward who plays for Malmö FF. He had come to ask a simple, unforgettable question: “Do you remember me?”
“He asked if I remembered him and caught me by surprise,” Messi explained after the match. “Then he said he was Guðjohnsen’s son. Honestly, I didn’t recognise him, he was just a tiny kid when I saw him at Barça training!”
The boy Messi vaguely recalls from the training pitches of the Ciutat Esportiva is the youngest son of Eiður Guðjohnsen, Messi’s former Barcelona teammate. The Icelandic striker shared the Blaugrana dressing room with Messi for three seasons between 2006 and 2009, making 114 official appearances and scoring 19 goals under Frank Rijkaard and later Pep Guardiola. When Guðjohnsen was finding the net alongside a teenage Messi, the baby who would grow up to face him was just a few months old – Daniel was born in London in March 2006, just as his father was completing his move to Catalonia.
Football families are not unusual in Iceland, and the Guðjohnsen name is one of the most celebrated in the nation’s sporting history. Eiður himself followed his father Arnór into the national team – the only father‑son duo to have played together for Iceland, a record that captured the country’s imagination. Now the next generation is making its own mark: Daniel’s two older brothers, Sveinn Aron and Andri Lucas, are also professional footballers, making the Guðjohnsens arguably the most prolific dynasty in Icelandic football.
For Daniel, the journey to facing Messi has been unusually circuitous. Raised in Spain, he passed through the youth academies of both Barcelona and Real Madrid – an almost unheard‑of double – before signing with Swedish club Malmö FF in 2022. The 1.90‑metre (6 ft 3 in) centre‑forward was named by The Guardian as one of the best players born in 2006 worldwide and has already earned five senior caps for Iceland.
Tuesday’s friendly was the first time Daniel has shared a pitch with his father’s former teammate. For his part, the elder Guðjohnsen has not forgotten what it was like to play alongside the Argentine prodigy. “When you have Messi in your team, you always have a chance,” he said in a later interview, recalling those early Camp Nou days. “Everyone in the dressing room knew that this kid was exceptional, you could simply see it from the beginning”.
The match itself was a routine Argentine victory. Valentín Barco opened the scoring in the eighth minute, Messi – returning from a minor hamstring injury – converted a second‑half penalty after coming on as a substitute, and Thiago Almada added a third late on. But for many observers, the real story unfolded after the final whistle.
Messi, who turns 39 just days before the World Cup and is about to embark on his sixth edition of the tournament, has outlasted entire generations of team‑mates. The tunnel chat in Alabama was a stark illustration: the man who once played with the father now shares a pitch with the son.
“It’s incredible when you think about it,” Messi reflected. “Time passes, but the game keeps bringing these moments. I feel lucky to still be here, living this.”
As Argentina prepares to open its World Cup defence against Algeria in Kansas City next week, the defending champions carry more than just a trophy‑hunting mentality. They carry a captain who has turned longevity into an art form – one chance encounter at a time.
