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.”
Messi And Yamal Will Meet In Sunday’s FIFA World Cup Final
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, after winning its first in 2010. Meanwhile, Argentina is trying to repeat as World Cup champion and win its fourth overall.
Messi And Yamal Did Meet Back In 2007 With Yamal In A Tub
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 social media:
Yep, that’s a younger then Barcelona star Messi on the left helping baby Yamal’s mother, Sheila Ebana, in the middle give the current Barcelona star on the right a bath in a little blue plastic tub. The social media world certainly soaked in this photo as it quickly went quite viral. It garnered a lot of reactions including a very Messi one. 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 Messi-Yamal Photo Was For A 2008 UNICEF Calendar
This photo shoot for FC Barcelona and UNICEF occurred not because baby Yamal had already learned to dribble—in a football sense and not a salivary sense—by that age. Yamal’s family had won a raffle to pose with a Barcelona player for the 2008 UNICEF calendar. And that Barcelona player turned out to be the rising star Messi. That Messi photo eventually appeared on the January page of the 2008 UNICEF calendar with 50 percent of calendar sales going to UNICEF projects that supported children’s rights.
Apparently, Yamal stole something from Messi that day but it wasn’t a soccer ball. 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.” Who knew then that the same smile would then win the hearts of football fans around the world?
Both Messi And Yamal Have Serves As UNICEF Ambassadors
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 running immunizations and other disease prevention programs, treating children and mothers who are infected with HIV, providing food and other types of nutrition to mothers and children, improving sanitation and helping respond to disasters.
Messi began serving as a UNICEF supporter in 2004 before becoming a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador six years later 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 the now 19-year-old Yamal has joined Messi as UNICEF’s newest Goodwill Ambassador. So, if the five-month-old baby Yamal had somehow said, “We will meet again,” he would have been correct multiple times over.