An Ordinary Miracle
In 2007, a photographer was told to shoot one footballer and one kid for a charity calendar.
The footballer was Lionel Messi. The kid turned out to be a 6-month-old baby named Lamine Yamal. On Sunday, in New Jersey, they play each other for the World Cup.
Robert Lewandowski (famous Polish player) saw the photo and almost refused to believe it was authentic. Photographer Joan Monfort told ESPN he had never believed in destiny before this and does now. But what makes the story stranger than destiny is how it actually happened.
Barcelona's foundation was producing a 2008 calendar with UNICEF. 12 months, 12 players, 12 children from Catalonia, all chosen by lottery. Yamal's parents, Sheila Ebana and Mounir Nasraoui, won a raffle in their neighborhood of Rocafonda, about 20 miles up the coast from Barcelona. Working class, heavily migrant. Fortune reported that studies suggest half the neighborhood lives below the poverty line.
No casting director picks that family. Messi got January because, as Monfort explained, he wasn't always in the starting 11. The most famous photograph in the history of the sport was handed to the squad player, paired with a baby found by lottery.
Take the story apart and the miracle disappears. What shows up instead is a sequence of ordinary decisions made by people who had no idea what they were building.
