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Lionel Messi has hinted that the end of his career may be near after admitting to “quite a few doubts” about his football future following the death of his father.
Jorge Messi died last week at the age of 68 in Rosario, Argentina, after a long illness, with his health during this summer’s World Cup appearing to take a toll on Argentina’s 39-year-old captain.
In a tribute on Instagram on Wednesday, Messi wrote: “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. I don’t know how to move forward. I only played football and now I have quite a few doubts about whether I’m going to keep doing it for much longer.
“You were by my side from the beginning; there was so little left until the end. Why couldn’t you hold on just a little longer so we could finish it together?”
Messi spent time with his father after the tournament, where Argentina were beaten in the final by Spain, before rejoining his club side, Inter Miami, making his Major League Soccer return against Columbus at the start of this month.
Jorge had been a constant presence during his son’s career from his earliest days at Barcelona, with the World Cup the first time he had been absent from a major tournament. Messi revealed that his father, despite his deteriorating condition, had urged him to play for La Albiceleste in their ultimately unsuccessful attempt to defend their title.
“You always asked me to play in the last World Cup and a few days before it started was when you got worse,” he wrote. “It was the first time you weren’t going to be at a tournament … Every time a match ended, I would wait and hope for your message. That’s when I realised how real the situation was.”
After tearfully celebrating the opening goal of his hat-trick against Algeria in the group stage, Messi had explained he was going through “a few difficult, complicated days” because of “something unrelated to football”. he said he ran out of energy in final.
“My legs couldn’t go on any more,” he wrote. “This time I tried to push myself beyond my physical limits, but I couldn’t. I never felt well … We weren’t champions, but you don’t know how much we enjoyed every match. Once again, you were right: I had to be there and play it.”
Messi has earned 207 caps for Argentina since making his debut for his country in August 2005. He captained the side to World Cup glory in 2022, matching the achievement of Diego Maradona in 1986, though like Maradona he fell at the final hurdle when attempting to win back-to-back titles.
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Messi did, though, break the record for total World Cup goals, with his strike against Egypt in the last 16 his 21st at the tournament and his 125th in all for Argentina. His World Cup tally was later surpassed by France’s Kylian Mbappé in the third-place playoff.
With his future uncertain it remains to be seen whether he will add to his remarkable CV of honours, which includes 10 La Liga titles, four Champions Leagues and eight Ballons d’Or in addition to that World Cup triumph in Qatar.
But he promised to honour his father’s memory through his own children: “I’m going to miss you so much, but you will always be present, especially in the upbringing of my children, because I will teach them and raise them the way you raised me.”
