Lionel Messi has said he is unsure how much longer he will continue playing football as he posted an emotional tribute after his father’s death.
Messi’s father Jorge, was 68 when he died last week following a long illness. Jorge had been the Argentina forward’s agent since he was 14 and watched him become one of the sport’s greatest ever players.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” Messi wrote on social media. “I don’t know how to carry on. I used to just play football, and now I’m really not sure if I’ll carry on doing it for much longer.”
Jorge had been by Messi’s side throughout his career, including during his rise from a young player in Rosario to global stardom.
“You were by my side from the very beginning. We were so close to the end,” Messi wrote. “Why didn’t you hang in there just a little longer so we could finish this together?”
Messi returned to Argentina with his family after his father’s death, where a private funeral was held on Sunday at a cemetery in Perez, on the outskirts of the city.
He said he was struggling to come to terms with the loss and acknowledged that his father had been suffering before his death.
“Dad, I still can’t believe you’re gone, it hasn’t sunk in, or rather, I don’t want it to.” “It’s so hard for me to imagine that I’ll never see you again, that we’ll never talk again,” Messi wrote.
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“I know you were suffering and that this is for the best, but you left too soon. We still had so much left to enjoy together.”
Messi also recalled his father’s hopes of seeing him play at one more World Cup. “You kept asking me to play in one last World Cup, and just days before it started, that’s when you took a turn for the worse,” he wrote.
According to Messi, it was the first major tournament his father was unable to attend. He said his mother continued to reassure him that Jorge would recover and might eventually be able to travel to watch him.
He said the absence of his father’s messages after matches made him realize how serious his condition had become.
“Even so, I couldn’t stop thinking about going as far as possible, to give you time to watch a game,” Messi said. “We made it to the final, and you couldn’t be there.”
Messi said he had hoped to win the tournament so he could present the trophy to his father but was unable to do so after struggling physically during the final.
“I wanted to win it so I could bring the trophy to you and show you a new one,” he wrote. “I couldn’t, my legs had nothing left. This time I tried to push past my physical limits, but I couldn’t. I never managed to feel right.”
During the World Cup, Messi was also seen in tears after scoring Argentina’s opening goal in a 3-0 victory over Algeria. At the time, he said his emotions were caused by a matter “completely unrelated to football”. His family later confirmed that Jorge was dealing with a “health-related situation”.
BBC
