On Sunday they will compete on the pitch for the final of the 2026 men’s football World Cup, but just under twenty years ago one was giving the other a bath. We’re talking about Lionel Messithe champion who needs no introduction, and Yamal laminaethe young talent that many already consider the future of world football. Way back in 2007 the two were immortalized for a Unicef charity calendar. The shots portray the Argentine champion, then twenty years old, bent over a basin complete with duck and soap, together with a baby of a few months, now twenty years old himself, who is none other than Yamal.
The photo is well known but, even for those who already know it, seeing it again is always exciting. What lies behind the shot is easy to say. At the time, Unicef, sponsor of Barcelona where Messi played, promoted a charity calendar giving some needy families the opportunity to pose with the Blaugrana champions. Among these, Yamal’s family.
Yamal’s father spread the image – «The beginning of two legends», the caption – during the 2024 European Championship. From then on it was a continuous bounce in the net and now it has a certain effect to see the shot 20 years later, knowing among other things that both players are Goodwill Ambassadors by Unicef. Divided on the field but united, therefore, in values.
The photo is moving for the time that has passed, for the surprises of life and the crossroads of destiny. What’s more: we’re used to seeing the number 10 confident as he dribbles and scores, sensing in the hinted smile and lowered eyes of that time a veil of emotional uncertainty brings Messi back from the empyrean of football to a human and earthly dimension.
The young Messi, already considered predestined but far from becoming a world legend, he tries his hand at one of the most powerful gestures of care: washing a little one who still can’t keep his back straight and in water it risks slipping off your hands. In other shots, Messi holds little Yamal in his arms and lets him play with his mother.
Joan Monfortthe photographer who took the photo, later told the Associated Press: «It was really complicated, at the beginning Messi didn’t even know how to hold him, it was a very difficult photo». And how can you blame him, you’re not born a dad or an “older brother”, just as you’re not born a champion. Eight Ballon d’Ors and three children later, Messi today would face the “bath challenge” with affectionate ease.
