{"id":582844,"date":"2026-08-12T22:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T22:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582844\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T22:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T22:36:16","slug":"lionel-messi-has-quite-a-few-doubts-about-football-future-after-death-of-his-father-lionel-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582844\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi has \u2018quite a few doubts\u2019 about football future after death of his father | Lionel Messi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi has hinted that the end of his career may be near after \u00adadmitting to \u201cquite a few doubts\u201d about his football future following the death of his father.<\/p>\n

Jorge Messi died last week at the age of 68<\/a> in Rosario, Argentina, after a long illness, with his health during this summer\u2019s World Cup appearing to take a toll on Argentina\u2019s 39-year-old captain.<\/p>\n

In a tribute on Instagram on Wednesday, Messi wrote: \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do without you. I don\u2019t know how \u200bto move forward. I only played football and now I have quite a few doubts about whether I\u2019m going to keep doing it for much longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were by my side from the beginning; there was so little left until the end. Why couldn\u2019t you hold on just a little longer so we could finish it together?\u201d<\/p>\n

Messi \u200bspent time with his \u200cfather after the tournament, where Argentina were beaten in the final by Spain, before rejoining his club side, Inter Miami<\/a>, making his Major League Soccer return against Columbus at the start of this month.<\/p>\n

Jorge had been a constant presence during his son\u2019s career from his earliest days at Barcelona, with the World Cup the first time he had been absent from a major tournament. Messi revealed that his father, despite his deteriorating condition, had urged him to play for La Albiceleste in their ultimately unsuccessful attempt to defend their title.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always asked me to play in the last World Cup and a few days before it started was when you got worse,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt was the first time you weren\u2019t going to be at a tournament \u2026 Every time a match ended, I would \u200cwait and hope for your message. That\u2019s when I realised how real the situation was.\u201d<\/p>\n

After tearfully celebrating the opening goal of his hat-trick against Algeria in the group stage, Messi had explained he was going through \u201ca few difficult, complicated days\u201d because of \u201csomething unrelated to football\u201d. he said he ran out of energy in final.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy legs couldn\u2019t go on any more,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis time I tried to push myself beyond my \u200bphysical limits, but I couldn\u2019t. \u200bI never felt well \u2026 We weren\u2019t champions, \u200bbut you don\u2019t know how much we enjoyed every match. Once again, you were \u200bright: I had to \u200cbe there and play \u200bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messi has earned 207 caps for Argentina<\/a> since making his debut for his country in August 2005. He captained the side to World Cup glory in 2022, matching the achievement of Diego Maradona in 1986, though like Maradona he fell at the final hurdle when attempting to win back-to-back titles.<\/p>\n

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Messi did, though, break the record for total World Cup goals, with his strike against Egypt in the last 16 his 21st at the tournament and his 125th in all for Argentina. His World Cup tally was later surpassed by France\u2019s Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 in the third-place playoff.<\/p>\n

With his future uncertain it remains to be seen whether he will add to his remarkable CV of honours, which includes 10 La Liga titles, four Champions Leagues and eight Ballons d\u2019Or in addition to that World Cup triumph in Qatar.<\/p>\n

But he promised to honour his father\u2019s memory through his own children: \u201cI\u2019m going to miss you so much, but you will always be present, especially in the upbringing of my children, because I will teach them and raise them the way you raised me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi has hinted that the end of his career may be near after \u00adadmitting to \u201cquite a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-582844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}