Argentina sensation Enzo Fernandez's emotional letter to Messi from 2016 resurfaces

Lionel Messi commented, "I'm not shocked by Enzo, I know him and I see him workout every day," after the 21-year-old Enzo Fernandez scored a beautiful second goal to assure Argentina over Mexico. Now an old letter has resurfaced where the young Argentina international, who became the youngest Argentinian scorer at the World Cup since Messi, expressed his unconditional love towards his idol and now team-mate.

A teenage Fernández wrote an emotional letter to his hero, appealing to him to reconsider his choice, after Messi had announced his retirement from international play for Argentina in 2016  - a decision he would recant after two months.

"How will we convince you, exactly? If we are terrible. How do we plan to persuade you? We have never experienced even a tenth of the stress you do. You see yourself in the mirror when you wake up in the morning and realise that more than 40 million people are counting on you to do the right thing, and that their right to demand it has been absurdly imposed.

How do we plan to convince you? If we fail to recognise that you are a person, not just a player with unparalleled talent - the finest on the planet - but a person nonetheless.

How do we plan to persuade you? If we don't take a moment to stop and recognize that the anger that losing causes us is not your fault; rather, it frequently reflects our own frustrations. Let's ask ourselves in the mirror if we expect even 1% of ourselves from this person we don't even know.

Lionel, go ahead and do as you please, but please consider staying. In a world of absurd pressures, they manage to get the most noble aspect of the game - fun - out of staying and playing," the letter read.