UNICEF Photo Showing Lionel Messi Bathing Baby Lamine Yamal Goes Viral

Lamine Yamal (L) of Spain and Lionel Messi (R) of Argentina meet again before the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final, 19 years after they first metfor a UNICEF photo shoot. (Photo by Tom Weller/picture alliance via Getty Images)

dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

It was back in 2007. Lionel Messi, 20 years of age at the time, was posing with a five-month-old Lamine Yamal for a UNICEF calendar photo. It’s not clear, though, whether baby Yamal told Messi at the time, “See you on the pitch at the World Cup Final 19 years from now I will.”

But that’s essentially what will happen on Sunday at the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final between Argentina and Spain. Messi is now the 39-year-old captain of La Albiceleste, while Yamal is a star right-winger for La Roja. Spain is trying to win its second World Cup, winning its first in 2010. Meanwhile, Argentina is trying to repeat as World Cup champion and win its fourth overall.

On July 16, soon after it was clear that Messi and Yamal would face each after Argentina had dispatched England 2-1 in the semi-finals, UNICEF posted the following on X:

The photo got the reverse of an X-reaction from Messi. Lizzy Becherano writing for ESPN quoted Messi as saying, "That photo is incredible. I took a picture with him when he was a baby ... the fact that we're both playing in the World Cup now is crazy."

The photo shoot for FC Barcelona and UNICEF occurred because Yamal’s family had won a raffle to pose with a Barcelona player for the 2008 UNICEF calendar. A photo where Messi helped Yamal’s mother, Sheila Ebana, give the Barcelona star a bath in a little blue plastic tub eventually appeared on the January page of the calendar. The calendar served as a fundraiser for UNICEF’s projects with 50 percent of sales going specifically to projects that supported children's rights.

A UNICEF web page quoted UNICEF Catalan’s Laia Ruich as saying, "The photographer, Joan Monfort, has said that Lamine Yamal stole Messi’s heart because he was always smiling." Yeah, Yamal may have stolen Messi’s heart then but will he steal the ball away from Messi on Sunday?

That photo shoot certainly hasn’t been the only thing that Messi and Yamal have done for UNICEF, which stands for the United Nations Children’s Fund. This agency of the United Nations has been around since 1953 and has been providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide. This has included offering immunizations and other disease prevention measures, giving children and mothers with HIV treatment, enhancing childhood and maternal nutrition, improving sanitation, promoting education, and providing emergency relief in response to disasters.

Messi began serving as a UNICEF supporter in 2004 before becoming a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2010. He made his presence as Goodwill Ambassador felt soon afterwards when he traveled to Haiti right after the devastating 7.0 earthquake rocked the island nation. The star power of the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner has helped bring more awareness to the health and welfare problems that children around the world continue to face. This year Yamal has joined Messi as UNICEF’s newest Goodwill Ambassador. So, if the five-month-old Yamal had somehow said, “We will meet again,” he would have been correct multiple times over.