Lionel Messi rarely shares details of his private life. Over two decades of his career, the Argentine striker has kept the media at long arm's length and reserved his emotions for his closest circle. That is why it is striking that, after his father's death, he's chosen to publish an open letter on social media in which his grief is all too apparent.

In the message, addressed directly to Jorge, Messi writes that he does not know how to continue without him. "I don't know what I'm going to do without you, I don't know how to carry on. I just played football and nowI have serious doubts that I'll keep doing it for much longer," the letter reads. Coming from someone who has always avoided talking about his retirement, the words carry particular weight.

The Albiceleste captain also laments, through his sadness, that his father was unable to hold on a little longer. "You were by my side from the very start, there was so little left to go. Why didn't you hang on that bit longer so we could finish together?" the statement reads.

Jorge Horacio Messi was not only Lionel's father. He was also his agent from the earliest years and the person who, as the footballer himself has acknowledged on several occasions, shouldered much of the weight of his career off the pitch.

In the letter, Messi recalls that constant closeness and regrets that his father's health, already fragile during the last World Cup, prevented him from accompanying him through to the end of the tournament.

"Dad, I still can't believe you're gone. We still had so much left to enjoy together. You kept insisting that I should play the last World Cup, and just days before it began was when you got worse," he writes. Messi says his mother assured him his father would improve enough to travel and watch him play the final, and that he himself clung to that hope. "I told you we were going to reach the final so you could travel. We made it to the final and you couldn't be there," he adds, referring to the match Argentina played and lost against Spain on 19 July in New Jersey.

"I wanted to win it to bring it to you and show you a new one. I couldn't; my legs just weren't there any more. This time I tried to push my body beyond its limits, but I couldn't. I never managed to feel right," he concludes in that part of the message, in which he acknowledges the physical wear and tear with which he arrived at the World Cup.

Contract in place and no decision yet announced

For now, Messi remains under contract with Inter Miami and has made no formal announcement about his future, either with the US club or with the Argentine national team.

The letter, however, suggests thathis father's death has triggered a bout of soul-searching he had not previously made public. The player himself admits that his relationship with football was always bound up with his father's figure, which helps explain why uncertainty over his future has emerged precisely at this moment.

Jorge Messi's funeral was held in private at the El Prado cemetery in Rosario, the hometown of both father and son, and was attended by Antonela Roccuzzo and the footballer's children. Clubs and bodies in Argentine football, among them Newell's Old Boys, the team Jorge openly supported, sent messages of farewell in the days that followed.

Six of the best - the most important moments in Messi's career

1. Barcelona first-team debut (2004). Aged just 17, Messi made his league debut for Barcelona's first team, the first step in a spell at the club that would last for more than two decades.

2. First Champions League as a leading star (Rome, 2009). Messi scored the second goal, a header, in the final against Manchester United, in a season in which Barcelona won all six trophies on offer. He has described that goal as the most important of his career.

3. Qatar 2022 World Cup. The one title he was missing. Messi lifted the trophy with Argentina after beating France in a penalty shoot-out, finally becoming world champion after previously losing four finals with the senior national team.

4. Leaving Barcelona (2021). After more than two decades at the club and 35 trophies, Messi tearfully announced his departure, forced by the club's financial and institutional crisis, before signing for Paris Saint-Germain.

5. Latest Ballon d'Or (2023). The year 2023 brought his latest Ballon d'Or, the ninth of his career. The award recognises him as the best player of the year and saw him share the stage with Spain's Aitana Bonmatí, who received the prize on the women's side of the game.

5. All-time World Cup top scorer (2026). During the World Cup staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico, Messi broke Miroslav Klose's record to become the top scorer in the tournament's history, at the same World Cup in which Argentina reached the final and lost to Spain.