Photo: Wikimedia Commons (free licence), cropped and styled by SportNestra — author and licence
“I don’t know if I’m aware of everything I achieved,” Messi says. The 39-year-old is portrayed as continuing to delight on the pitch whenever he laces up his boots. He could keep doing so for as long as he wants; the decision about when to hang up his boots would be his, rather than being imposed by football.
Asked what he would tell his younger self, Messi replies: “Enjoy it. Enjoy things more. In fact, I still don’t know if I’m aware of everything I achieved in football.” The reflection sets the tone for a look back in which he remains unsure of the full scale of his accomplishments.
One chapter has, however, already closed: his time with the Argentina national team. Messi describes the attachment that experience created: “I enjoyed coming. I did it for more than 20 years, and it isn’t easy to leave. Thank you, Argentina, for sharing all these years with me. It was an enormous source of pride to wear this shirt and defend it with all my soul. I had to lose, I had to win, but wearing this shirt stands above everything, and that is how I always tried to defend it.”
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