Argentina World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez penned an emotional letter to Lionel Messi after he announced his retirement from international football.
Back in 2016, Messi decided to retire from national team duties after Argentina suffered a heartbreaking penalty shootout defeat to Chile in the Copa America – their fourth major final loss in nine years.
Messi, whose only major international honour was Olympic gold at the 2008 Games, had also lost a Copa America final to Chile the previous year.
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And his miss in the 2016 shootout appeared to be the final nail in the coffin.
"For me, the national team is over," Messi said. "I've done all I can. It hurts not to be a champion. It's been four finals, I tried. It was the thing I wanted the most, but I couldn't get it, so I think it's over.
"I think this is best for everyone. First of all for me, then for everyone. I think there's a lot of people who want this, who obviously are not satisfied, as we are not satisfied reaching a final and not winning it.
"It's very hard, but the decision is taken. Now I will not try more and there will be no going back."
Less than two months later and Messi reversed his decision to retire from the national side when he was named in Argentina's World Cup qualifiers squad.
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The rest, as they say, is history. After so many years of hurt, the 35-year-old forward finally lifted football's biggest prize on Sunday afternoon when Argentina beat France in the World Cup final.
It was an emotional moment for Messi and his La Albiceleste teammates considering the amount of setbacks they'd had as a group.
And after the full-time whistle, a letter penned to Messi by teammate Enzo Fernandez from 2016 was discovered – and it likely sparked a few more tears in the Argentina camp.
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Fernandez, who was only 16 at the time, wrote his hero a message on Facebook.
It read: "How are we going to convince you if we are disastrous? How are we going to convince you if in our lives we have never had 1% of the pressure that you have on your shoulders?
"That you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and know that a crowd of more than 40 million people not only want you to do things perfectly, but it's also been ridiculously imposed that they can demand them from you.
"How are we going to convince you if we could not understand that you are a human being, a person with unmatched talent, the best player on the planet but a person anyway.
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"How are we going to convince you if we don't stop for a second to realize that you are not responsible for the anger that losing brings us, which often has more to do with our own frustrations that arise.
"Let's look in the mirror and ask ourselves, what if we demand of ourselves 1% of what we demand of this boy that we don't even really know?"
You can read the full statement from Fernandez' Facebook post on June 27, 2016 below. This is incredible.
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Six years later and the highly-rated Fernandez went on to lift the Young Player of the Tournament award at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The Benfica midfielder is now wanted by a host of top European clubs, including Liverpool, who have had a €100 million offer rejected in recent days, according to Portuguese outlet Correio de Manhã.
Thoughts on the Fernandez letter? Let us know in the comments.
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Topics: Argentina, Lionel Messi, Enzo Fernandez, Football World Cup
Jack Kenmare