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Dream comes true of bag-shirt Messi fan

DOHA: The Afghan boy who once became the internet sensation after pictures of him went viral, wearing self-made plastic-bag Lionel Messi football shirt. The boy’s dream finally materialized and met his football superstar Lionel Messi.

Murtaza Ahmadi, the Afghan boy, met the Barcelona forward in Doha, where Spanish league champions gathered to play a friendly match with Saudi Arabian team Al-Ahli.

The six year boy belongs to the rural Ghazni province southwest of Kabul.

“The image the world wanted to see,” tweeted Qatar´s 2022 World Cup organisers, who brought the pair together.

“The six-year-old boy who dreamed of meeting his hero, #Messi, finally comes true.”

A delighted Murtaza said: “I´m very happy to have met my hero. It is a dream for me,” according to a statement released by Qatar´s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the committee overseeing the organisation of the 2022 tournament.

Murtaza became an internet sensation earlier this year after he was pictured wearing an improvised hero´s shirt, made out of a plastic bag, with the name Messi and the famous number 10 written on it in marker pen.

Homayoun, Murtaza’s elder brother made the shirt by the grocery bag thrown out by the neighbours.

“I love Messi, he plays really well, and I love the shirt my brother made for me,” he told.

His family was in not in sound financial position to buy Murtaza a replica kit.

Pictures of Murtaza playing football in his self-made kit were first posted on Facebook. Murtaza received a real shirt from his hero Messi after the pictures went viral.

“I want my son to become the Messi of Afghanistan,” says Mohammad Arif Ahmadi, the boys father.

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