The set of images featuring Lionel Messi bathing Lamine Yamal in her childhood is the outcome of a charity calendar project in which UNICEF and Barca participated.

The picture of Messi bathing Yamal when he was only five months old has been popular among fans lately. The image was the product of an effort in 2007 to release a charitable calendar. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Sport newspaper, and the Barca Charity Foundation are the three participating organisations.

Every month in the calendar, images of athletes with kids represent sport. In 2006, the newspaper hurriedly picked children for its inaugural edition, most of them were staff members’ children or relatives. White children make up the majority of them, and their involvement in UNICEF’s global mission is little.
UNICEF therefore had to spend several months selecting in order to be ready for the second edition. One of the selected infants is from the Catalan neighbourhood of Rocafonda. The parents of a five-month-old baby named Lamine Yamal won a lottery among the parents whose children wished to take part.

Watch this amazing moment Rock, paper, scissors is used by Spanish celebrities Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal to choose whether
The Barca media department is in charge of choosing the players who will take part. Coincidentally, Messi was the player selected by the team on the day Yamal and his parents arrived at Camp Nou. Messi wasn’t exactly a star like Ronaldinho, Deco, or Samuel Eto’o at the time; he was merely a potential young player.

It was while Yamal and his wife were bathing their daughter Jana at home that sport photographer Joan Monfort had the bright idea to snap a picture of Yamal in the bathtub. He took a basin, a towel and his daughter’s favourite yellow rubber ducky when he got to the yard.

When it came time to snap pictures, Monfort filled the basin with water and, accompanied by Yamal’s mother, timidly walked in with the youngster in the water. Messi had never held a baby before. Prior to the appearance of Jana’s duck, things were difficult. After that, things settled down, and Monfort took over with the camera.

Yamal rose to fame for Barca and the Spain squad sixteen years after the incident. At 16 years and 57 days, the right-wing striker became the youngest player to play for the team. At 16 years and 338 days, he became the youngest player to compete at the European Championship.