Going Viral: Messi fulfils the dream of an Afghan boy
Argentina’s football star Lionel Messi has sent not one, but two jerseys to a five-year-old Afghan boy who became an Internet sensation when he was pictured wearing a plastic bag with ‘Messi’ scrawled on it in marker pen.
Chennai
Murtaza Ahmadi travelled with his family from eastern Ghazni province to Kabul to receive the gifts sent by Messi through UNICEF, where the latter is a goodwill ambassador. Messi autographed the jerseys, writing ‘With much love’ in Spanish on them alongside a football.
The image touched a chord with football fans around the world, and earned Murtaza the sobriquet ‘little Messi’ on social media.
Football and cricket are the two most popular sports in the war-ravaged Afghanistan — but sports were rarely played under Taliban rule, and the football stadium in Kabul was a notorious venue for executions, stonings and mutilations.
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