very happy for spain. but for my leo… i have so much to say. i don’t know football without leo messi. i genuinely don’t know how to say goodbye to him either. and i don’t know how you grieve someone who’s technically still playing. because that’s what this feels like. it feels like i’m saying goodbye to the biggest chapter of my life as a football fan, and i don’t know what comes after that. i think that’s the most beautiful, and the most heartbreaking, part about football. how unbelievably bittersweet it is. my heart broke watching him lose his final world cup. but in the middle of all that heartbreak, i couldn’t stop thinking about something else. maradona’s final world cup ended in heartbreak, and football found messi. now messi’s final world cup ends in heartbreak, and football has found lamine. maybe that’s how this sport survives. maybe every goodbye is also the beginning of someone else’s story. football is so fucking beautiful like that. legends leave, but they never leave the game empty. they leave it in better hands than they found it. and i don’t think there’s a more beautiful example of that than watching leo smile as this next generation begins to write its own story. so thank you, leo. thank you for every ounce of joy you’ve brought me. every ounce of passion. every ounce of belief. from the little girl who fell in love with football because of you, to the woman i am today… thank you. i’ll never know football the way i knew it with you. i don’t think i’ll ever love this sport in quite the same way again. but because of you, i’ll always love it. you’ll always be the reason. maybe that’s what feels the most full circle. my heart shattered in 2014. somehow, that heartbreak became the reason i fell in love with football. and twelve years later… you broke it one last time and still left me with something to love. forever grateful, leo