isn’t it crazy how such minuscule details can heavily impact your entire life? my family isn’t really football-oriented, so i was never interested in football growing up. when i was around 6 tho, my cousin started staying with us. he was into football ofc and he’d always try and force me to play fifa with him. i would always decline but he was so persistent about it and after a few months of his pestering, i finally caved in. it’s safe to say that i fell in love with the game.😭 i would always pick barcelona bc i was so obsessed with messi. i didn’t care about the other players, all i did was try to pass to messi and score with him. i was genuinely infatuated with this man. i even got his full kit irl.😭 i think that’s what makes it so crazy when looking back. what if my cousin never stayed with us? what if he decided to stop pestering me to play fifa with him after i declined countless times? maybe i wouldn’t have fallen in love with messi in the first place, and without being so infatuated with messi, maybe i wouldn’t have enjoyed fifa nearly as much as i did. i probably wouldn’t have even cared for the sport, if not for that fact. i genuinely cannot imagine my life without football now. it’s almost my entire personality, and lowk, messi is too. messi is football to me. after 21 whole years, he’s played his final international game and it’s such a strange feeling. i knew this day would inevitably come, but i would always push the thought to the back of my mind. i’ve spent basically my entire life watching this man play football. so many of my earliest memories are tied to messi, and now i’ll never get to see him wear those blue and white stripes again. what a poetic ending too. a goal and two assists in your final game. one of the assists being to your fellow teammate, who’s retiring alongside you, and the other to the next 🔟 for the country. it doesn’t get any better than that. (1/2)