Lionel Messi published an extensive farewell letter to his father on his Instagram account this Wednesday, four days after the burial of Jorge Messi, who passed away last Saturday at the age of 68 at the Centro Sanatorio de Rosario. The post includes a photograph of both of them together and the full text of the letter, which the Argentine star concluded with a single sentence: "I love you, Dad."
Jorge Messi passed away in the early hours of Saturday, August 8, at 2:00 AM local time after a prolonged illness, the diagnosis of which the family kept private. The funeral was held on Sunday at the private cemetery El Prado, in the town of Pérez, about 25 minutes from Rosario, in a intimate ceremony with close family.
The letter begins with a confession of disbelief: "Dad, I still can't believe you’re gone. I can't accept it, or rather, I don't want to accept it. It's hard for me to imagine that I won't see you again, that we won't talk anymore. I know you were suffering and that this is for the best, but you left too soon. We still had so much to enjoy together."
The most striking passage of the letter is the one that opens the debate about Messi's future in professional soccer: "I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, I don’t know how to go on. I only played soccer and now I have many doubts about continuing to do it for much longer. You were by my side from the beginning, it was so close to the end. Why couldn’t you hold on just a little longer so we could finish together?".
The Argentine star, 39 years old, also revealed in the letter the details of what he experienced during the 2026 World Cup, the last of his career. Jorge's condition worsened just before the start of the tournament, marking the first time he would miss his son's tournament: "You kept insisting that I play in the last World Cup, and just days before it started is when you got the worst."
Messi confessed that he played every match thinking about his father: "Every time a match ended, I waited and missed your message. That's when I realized the situation was really tough." Argentina reached the final —held on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where they lost to Spain 1-0 in extra time— with the hope that Jorge could travel to watch it. He couldn't.
One of the most heart-wrenching moments of the letter describes the reunion in Rosario after the tournament: "When I arrived, you thought we had lost the final in penalties. We couldn't talk about anything that happened. You couldn't enjoy anything."
Messi also recalled his father's role from his childhood, when he would take him to training after work, and defined him in three words: "You were a dad, a friend, and a representative. You were always the person you needed to be at every moment, and you never got anything wrong."
In an Instagram story posted the same day, Messi expressed his gratitude for the support he received: "I want to sincerely thank everyone for the love, respect, and immense consideration you showed to me and my family during this painful time following my father's passing. Thank you for being there for us, for every message, every gesture, and above all, for respecting our grief and our privacy."
The letter concludes with a promise: "I will miss you very much, but you will always be present, especially in the education of my children, because I teach and raise them just as you did with me. Rest in peace and watch over us from above as you did here. Thank you for everything."
Messi has a contract with Inter Miami until 2028, but the words published this Wednesday leave an unanswered question that the football world cannot ignore: Will he continue playing?
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