Lionel Messi shared a tribute to his late father, Jorge, on Wednesday, opening up about how difficult it was to lead Argentina to the World Cup final and expressing uncertainty about whether he will continue playing soccer.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” the post said in Spanish. “I don’t know how to keep going. All I ever did was play soccer, and now I have serious doubts about whether I’ll keep doing it for much longer.” Jorge Messi died on Saturday. He was 68.
Lionel Messi led Argentina to a runner-up finish in this summer’s World Cup. In the team’s first match, against Algeria, he was visibly emotional after scoring the first of his three goals. He said later that he wept for “a reason unrelated to sports.” “You asked me to play in this last World Cup so many times and just before it started was when you took a turn for the worse,” the post said. “It was the first time you weren’t going to be at the tournament.