Messi fans, the search is over.
The boy seen wearing a striped plastic bag with the football player’s name and number scrawled in blue ink appears to have been found.
He’s five-year-old Murtaza Ahmadi from Afghanistan, according to his uncle, Azim Ahmadi, who told CNN the image was taken by the young football fan’s older brother, Hamayon.
More images posted to Hamayon’s Facebook page show Murtaza holding up the bag, and wearing it while he appears to dance.
Internet users started searching for the boy in mid-January when a Lionel Messi fan account on Twitter posted an image of him wearing a plastic “Messi” bag.
The photo showed him only from the back — a small boy with a buzz cut wearing a brown knitted sweater — with a message that read: “A kid in Iraq…” It included an emoji of a breaking heart.
The Iraq reference turned out to be false. A Twitter user who tweeted that the boy was from Dohuk — a city in northern Iraq — later admitted that he’d made it up.
The false lead led to claims by a Kurdistan television station that they’d found the boy in Dohuk.
In fact, Murtaza lives with his family in Jaghori, a city south-west of Kabul in Afghanistan. His father’s a crop farmer and Murtaza is yet to start school. When he grows up he’d like to be a footballer, his uncle said.
Murtaza’s life couldn’t be more removed than that of his idol.
Earlier this month, Messi reclaimed his title as the world’s best player, winning his fifth Ballon d’Or award at a lavish ceremony in Zurich.
“It’s much more than anything I’ve dreamed of as a kid,” Messi said, as he accepted the award. “I want to thank everyone who voted for me and I want to thank my teammates. And lastly, I want to thank football in general for everything it has brought me. Both the bad and the good. Because it has made me learn and grow.”
Last week, the Leo Messi fan account tweeted that they’d received a direct message from Leo’s team. “They want to know who this kid is so that Leo can arrange something for him.”
Over to you, Messi.
