Messi pens heartfelt tribute to late father: 'I can't believe you're gone'

Lionel Messi, 39, has shared a lengthy tribute to his late father, Jorge Messi, on social media.

After returning to Miami on Tuesday, Messi posted an open letter to his father on SNS. Jorge Messi died Saturday in Rosario, Argentina, at the age of 68.

"I still can't believe you're gone," Messi wrote. "It's hard to imagine I can no longer see you or talk to you. There was still so much left for us to enjoy together — you left too soon."

The most striking passage in the letter centered on his father's illness during the 2026 World Cup.

Messi wrote that his father had pleaded with him to play in one last World Cup, but that his condition took a sharp turn for the worse just days before the tournament began.

At the time, Messi had hoped his father would recover and be able to attend matches in person. "I told him we would make it to the final and he could come then," he wrote. "After every game I waited for his message, and that was when I realized how serious things really were."

Messi said he played through the tournament driven by the desire to give his father one more game to watch. "I wanted to go as far as possible — to buy time somehow so he could see at least one game in person," he wrote.

Argentina reached the final, but Jorge was unable to watch. "I wanted to win and bring him the trophy, to show him a new one," Messi wrote. "But I couldn't. This time I tried to push past my physical limits, but it was impossible. My legs had nothing left."

Messi also described the moment he visited his father after the World Cup ended.

"When I arrived, he thought we had lost the final on penalties," he wrote. "I couldn't tell him everything that had happened. He wasn't able to enjoy any of it."

"He'll never know how much we enjoyed every single game," Messi added. "And again, he was right — I needed to be there and I needed to play."

Messi was also candid about how his father's death may affect the rest of his football career.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do without him, or how to keep going," he wrote. "I just played football, and now I'm not sure I can keep doing this much longer."

He then expressed a deep longing for his father, who died before Messi's retirement: "You were by my side from the very beginning, and there was so little left until the end — why couldn't you hold on just a little longer and finish it together with me?"

Messi is not the only figure in Argentine football whose drive for the game has been shaken by the loss of a father.

Carlos Tevez — a Boca Juniors legend who also played for Manchester United, Manchester City and Juventus — stepped away from the game after losing his father, Segundo, in 2021, and officially announced his retirement the following year. "I quit football because I lost my No. 1 fan," he said.