Jorge Messi died on August 8, at the age of 68, in a clinic in Rosario. He had been ill for some time. Four days later, his son Lionel published a letter that did not seem written by the best footballer in the world, but by an ordinary son who cannot find the words.
“Dad, I still can’t believe you’ve gone”, it began. “It hasn’t sunk in, or rather, I don’t want it to sink in.”
Jorge had asked him to play in his last World Cup. He asked him even when the illness had already left him bedridden, when for the first time he would not be able to travel to watch him play. Messi promised to reach the final to give him time. So that he could travel. So that he could see him one more time.
He reached the final. Jorge did not get to travel. “I wanted to win it to bring it to you and show you a new one. I couldn’t, my legs had nothing left.”
When he returned to Rosario, his father believed Argentina had lost on penalties. They did not talk about what had happened. There was no time. “We weren’t champions, but you have no idea how much we enjoyed every match.”
Jorge Messi was an agent, a guide, the signature behind every contract. But above all, he was the man who one day took a short boy from Rosario for a trial at a club, not knowing that the world would be grateful to him forever.
“You were always the person you needed to be at every moment, and you never got anything wrong.”
Now Messi says he does not know whether he will keep playing. That he only knew how to play football, and that deep down, he did it so his father could watch him.
That legacy, he promises, will not fade: he will teach it to his children, just as Jorge taught it to him.