Barcelona star Lamine Yamal has set social media talking again, and this time he didn't need to write a single sentence to do it.
Yamal posted a black-and-white photograph on his Instagram Stories showing him embracing Pedri and Eric Garcia, accompanied only by the word "Mamba" and a snake emoji.
Sport newspaper reported: "At first glance, the picture looks like just another snapshot reflecting the closeness between the Catalan side's players in the dressing room, but the gesture carries a deeper meaning."
It added: "Pedri wears the number 8 shirt, while Eric Garcia wears the number 24, the two numbers Kobe Bryant wore during his career with the Los Angeles Lakers."
Barcelona's second-kit shirts also carry Kobe Bryant's logo instead of Nike's traditional one.
That word "Mamba" points straight at the nickname that followed Bryant everywhere, "the Black Mamba". Few figures in the history of the American professional basketball league loom larger.
The Los Angeles Lakers legend wore the number 8 shirt between 1996 and 2006, then switched to 24 from 2006 until his retirement in 2016. The club later retired both numbers in his honour, an exceptional step in the league.
Bryant died in January 2020 in a helicopter crash. His standing and legacy, along with his famous "Mamba Mentality" philosophy, still inspire athletes across a range of sports.
Yamal lifted the image from a post by the account @dahood.original, the marketing agency that manages his image.
That same post featured an artificial intelligence creation merging two stages of Bryant's career: his number 8 years and his number 24 years, with the player appearing in both guises, embracing on a basketball court as if they were two different men.