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Lionel Messi has admitted he is "really not sure" whether he will continue playing soccer "for much longer," sharing his thoughts while mourning the recent passing of his father Jorge, who stood beside him throughout every chapter of his career.
Jorge Messi's death at age 68 was confirmed on Aug. 8. When false reports of his passing circulated during the World Cup, a family statement clarified that the Argentina captain's longtime agent and advisor was receiving medical care. Messi has since shed light on the severity of his father's condition, which kept him from attending the tournament staged across North America.
"Dad, I still can't believe you're gone," Messi wrote on Instagram in his first public statement since the news broke.
"I can't process it—or maybe I just refuse to. It's so difficult for me to accept that I'll never see your face again, that we'll never have another conversation. I know you were in pain and that this is for the best, but you left us far too soon. We still had so much more to share together."
"I don't know how to go on without you; I don't know what comes next," Messi continued. "All I've ever done is play soccer, and now I'm really not sure if I'll keep doing it for much longer. You were there from the very start—we were so close to reaching the end together. Why couldn't you hold on just a little bit longer so we could finish this journey side by side?"
Messi remains under contract with Inter Miami through the end of 2028. There had been idle speculation about the 39-year-old pushing on to the 2030 World Cup, which will be partially hosted in his native Argentina. However, it now seems unclear whether he will even complete the remainder of the current season.
Father's Illness Paints Messi's World Cup in Haunting New Light
For someone so composed and focused during the intensity of a soccer match, Messi endured a deeply emotional World Cup. After netting the opening goal in Argentina's 3–0 win over Algeria to launch what would become a remarkable individual tournament, the former Barcelona star broke down in tears. "It was something completely unrelated to soccer," Messi explained after the game, before his father's condition was made public.
The seasoned forward channeled his overwhelming personal grief into one of the most extraordinary individual performances in World Cup history. Despite approaching his fourth decade, Messi scored eight goals, contributed three assists, and nearly single-handedly carried Argentina all the way to the final.
As the No. 10 has now disclosed, the entire tournament was an act of devotion to his father — every goal, every victory, keeping alive the hope of sharing one final celebration with the man who had always been in his corner.
"You kept asking me to play in the last World Cup, and just days before it kicked off, that's when things took a turn for the worst," Messi wrote. "It was the first time you weren't going to be at a tournament, but Mom kept reassuring me you'd recover and be well enough to travel. I told you we were going to reach the final so you could come and be there."
The music ends. Immortality doesn't. pic.twitter.com/dgUQLOkymB
"After every match, I'd wait for your message and feel your absence. That's when I understood just how serious things had become. Even so, I couldn't stop pushing forward, trying to go as far as possible, to buy more time so you could watch another game. We made it to the final, and you still couldn't be there.
"When I finally reached you, you thought we had lost the final on penalties. We never got to talk about everything that had happened. You couldn't enjoy a single moment of it. We didn't lift the trophy, but you had no idea how much joy we found in every single game. Once again, you were right: I had to be there and play.
"I'm telling you this because it was the one thing we never got to discuss — you already knew everything else."
'Dad, Friend, Mentor'
Jorge played an indispensable role in shaping the career of arguably the greatest footballer the sport has ever seen. Messi's local club Grandoli were the first to regularly benefit from his extraordinary talent, though that chapter ended when he was just 6. After Jorge was turned away from a match one day for forgetting the two-peso entry fee, his son never set foot on that pitch again.
Newell's Old Boys welcomed the young Messi but were reluctant to cover the cost of the growth hormone treatment that Jorge's modest factory worker's wage could barely afford. It was Jorge who broadened the search for a new club beyond Argentina's borders, distributing tapes of his gifted son juggling virtually any round object he could find — 113 touches with an orange, 140 with a tennis ball, and 29 with a table tennis ball.
Barcelona responded, and Messi Sr. sat across from Carles Rexach as he hastily scrawled a contract on a paper napkin at a local tennis club, securing young Lionel's future with the Catalan giants.
"I know your happiness came from seeing your family — your wife, your children — thrive, and above all, without letting on to anyone else, from watching me play..." Messi wrote.
"It was always that way, ever since I was small. You'd take me to every training session the moment you got home from work. Mom took me to many of them because you were still at the job.
"And of course, you never missed a single game. How you suffered watching me — and how you loved every second of it — even though you never went overboard with the compliments.
"You were a dad, a friend and a mentor," wrote Messi, who never employed a professional agent, choosing instead to rely on his father's counsel. "You were always exactly what was needed in every moment, and you were never wrong. Despite the occasional disagreement, you were always right in the end. Things always turned out exactly as you said they would.
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"I'm going to miss you more than words can say, but you'll always be with me — especially in how I raise my children, because I guide them the same way you and Mom guided me.
"Rest in peace, and watch over us from above just as you always did from here. Thank you for everything.
"I love you, Dad."