Jorge acted as his son’s agent and manager throughout his career, and lived with Lionel in Barcelona after he first moved to the Spain to begin playing for the club.
In response, Messi shared the following letter to his father on Instagram:
Full transcript in English below:
Dad, I still can’t believe that you’re gone. It hasn’t sunk in, or rather, I don’t want it to. It’s very hard for me to imagine that I’m never going to see you again, that we’re never going to talk again. I know you were suffering and that this is for the best, but you left too soon. We still had so much left to enjoy together.
You asked me so much to play in this last World Cup, and just days before it started was when you got worse. It was the first time you weren’t going to be at a tournament, but mom kept telling me that you were going to get better and that you’d be fine enough to travel. I told you that we were going to reach the final so that you could travel.
It’s very hard for me to imagine that I’m never going to see you again, that we’re never going to talk again. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, I don’t know how to keep going. I only played football, and now I have plenty of doubts that I’ll keep doing it for much longer. You were by my side from the beginning; there was so little left until the end. Why couldn’t you hold on just a little bit more so we could finish together?
I know your happiness was seeing your family doing well, your wife, your children, and above all, without the others knowing, watching me play.
Since I was a little kid, it was always like that. You would take me to all the training sessions as soon as you got home from work. Mom took me to many of them because you were working.
Obviously, you didn’t miss a single match. How you suffered watching me, and how you enjoyed it, even though you never showered me with compliments.
You were a dad, a friend, and an agent. You were always the person you needed to be in every moment, and you were never wrong about anything. Beyond a few reproaches or arguments, you were always right. In the end, things always turned out just as you said.
I’m going to miss you so much, but you will always be present, especially in the upbringing of my children, because I teach and educate them the way you two did with me.
Rest in peace and watch over us from above just as you did here. Thank you for everything.
