‘How lucky I was, Leo’: Enzo’s tearful goodbye to his idol
Enzo Fernandez could not stop crying.
As Lionel Messi stood in front of thousands of Argentina supporters at the Monumental and delivered his emotional farewell, the Manchester City midfielder couldn’t hold back his tears.
He tried to hold himself together, but the emotion was simply too much.
For Fernandez, this was not just another night with the national team. It was the moment he had always feared would come—the moment when the player he had idolized since childhood would finally say goodbye to Argentina.
While Messi spoke to the crowd after Argentina's 3–0 victory over Benin, Fernandez watched through tears, visibly struggling to contain his emotions.
And perhaps no one understood the weight of that moment better than him.
Because long before Fernandez became a World Cup winner, he was simply a 15-year-old boy dreaming of playing alongside Lionel Messi.
Back in 2016, when Messi briefly stepped away from the national team, Fernandez was heartbroken.
He was so desperate to know whether their paths could ever cross that he began doing the math.
He compared Messi's age with his own. He calculated how many years Messi might have left with Argentina and how long it would take him to reach the senior team.
His dream was simple: just once, he wanted to play alongside his idol.
At the time, it seemed like an impossible dream. But Messi returned.
And years later, that same boy who had been doing the math walked onto the pitch wearing the Argentina shirt alongside Lionel Messi.
He didn't just play with him once. They trained together. Shared the dressing room. Celebrated victories. Experienced difficult moments.
And together, they became world champions.
For Fernandez, though, the most meaningful part of the story was never simply sharing the field with Messi.
It was the way Messi treated him. “I will always be grateful for how you treated me from the moment I arrived,” Fernandez wrote.
“I came here with the hope of sharing the pitch with my idol, and instead I found someone who, from the very first moment, made me feel like one of the team.”
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Those words reveal why the farewell hit Fernandez so hard.
After the match, he was asked about the emotional night.
“A very emotional day, to be honest, a lot of mixed feelings. I hope Leo enjoyed it. We're going to miss him a lot,” Fernandez said.
But his tears had already said what words could not.
Fernandez later put those feelings into a heartfelt letter to Messi.
“Today I find it hard to imagine the next training camp without you,” he wrote. Going out onto the field and not seeing you up front, wearing number 10.”
After so many years of seeing Messi there, Fernandez admitted that it was difficult to imagine Argentina without him.
Then came the line that brought his entire journey full circle: “How lucky I was, Leo.”
“Thank you for treating me the way you did, for everything you taught me, and for letting me share a part of your story. We're going to miss you a lot, captain.”
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