Lionel Messi rarely shares details of his private life. Over two decades of his career, the Argentine striker has kept the media at long arm's length and reserved his emotions for his closest circle. That is why it is striking that, after his father's death, he's chosen to publish an open letter on social media in which his grief is all too apparent.
In the message, addressed directly to Jorge, Messi writes that he does not know how to continue without him. "I don't know what I'm going to do without you, I don't know how to carry on. I just played football and nowI have serious doubts that I'll keep doing it for much longer," the letter reads. Coming from someone who has always avoided talking about his retirement, the words carry particular weight.
The Albiceleste captain also laments, through his sadness, that his father was unable to hold on a little longer. "You were by my side from the very start, there was so little left to go. Why didn't you hang on that bit longer so we could finish together?" the statement reads.
Jorge Horacio Messi was not only Lionel's father. He was also his agent from the earliest years and the person who, as the footballer himself has acknowledged on several occasions, shouldered much of the weight of his career off the pitch.
