Lizzy Becherano writing for ESPN<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\nThe Messi-Yamal Photo Was For A 2008 UNICEF Calendar<\/p>\n
This photo shoot for FC Barcelona and UNICEF occurred not because baby Yamal had already learned to dribble\u2014in a football sense and not a salivary sense\u2014by that age. Yamal\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
Apparently, Yamal stole something from Messi that day but it wasn\u2019t a soccer ball. A UNICEF web page quoted UNICEF Catalan\u2019s Laia Ruich as saying, “The photographer, Joan Monfort, has said that Lamine Yamal stole Messi\u2019s heart because he was always smiling.” Who knew then that the same smile would then win the hearts of football fans around the world?<\/p>\n
Both Messi And Yamal Have Serves As UNICEF Ambassadors<\/p>\n
That photo shoot certainly hasn\u2019t been the only thing that Messi and Yamal have done for UNICEF, which stands for the United Nations Children\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019Or winner has helped bring more awareness to the health and welfare problems that children around the world continue to face. <\/p>\n
This year the now 19-year-old Yamal has joined Messi as UNICEF\u2019s newest Goodwill Ambassador. So, if the five-month-old baby Yamal had somehow said, \u201cWe will meet again,\u201d he would have been correct multiple times over. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lamine Yamal (L) of Spain and Lionel Messi (R) of Argentina meet again before the 2026 FIFA World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,34477,22,19,17,35043,28673,235362,132,60326,251680,251679,35350,251678],"class_list":["post-594068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-football","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lamine-yamal","tag-lionel-messi","tag-messi","tag-sports","tag-unicef","tag-unicef-calendar","tag-world-cup-final","tag-world-cup","tag-yamal"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116948758683372610","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"2026](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784496310_668_0x0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n