{"id":57818,"date":"2016-02-02T16:46:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T14:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=57818"},"modified":"2016-02-02T16:46:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T14:46:56","slug":"lionel-messi-afghan-kid-who-dressed-argentina-star-57818-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/lionel-messi-afghan-kid-who-dressed-argentina-star-57818-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi to meet young Afghan kid who dressed as Argentina star in blue-and-white striped plastic bag"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-57819\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Lionel-Messi.jpg\" alt=\"Lionel Messi\" width=\"610\" height=\"398\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Lionel-Messi.jpg 610w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Lionel-Messi-280x183.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Lionel-Messi-552x360.jpg 552w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/>Barcelona star Lionel Messi is hoping to arrange a meeting with an Afghan boy who shot to fame after pictures of him dressed in a striped plastic bag jersey went viral.<\/h1>\n<p>The Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) has announced that international football sensation Lionel Messi would meet Murtaza Ahmadi, a five-year-old Afghan fan whose photo wearing a homemade Messi jersey recently went viral on social media.<\/p>\n<p>According to Anadolu Agency, The jersey, which was fashioned by the boy\u2019s 15-year-old brother Homayoun from a blue-and-white striped plastic bag, bears the word &#8220;MESSI&#8221; and the number &#8220;10&#8221; written in marker.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-57820\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/lionel-messi-afghan-boy.jpg\" alt=\"messi\" width=\"610\" height=\"585\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/lionel-messi-afghan-boy.jpg 610w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/lionel-messi-afghan-boy-229x220.jpg 229w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/lionel-messi-afghan-boy-375x360.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The AFF has contacted Lionel Messi, the world football star, and it will soon arrange Messi\u2019s meeting with Murtaza,&#8221; read a statement issued by the federation.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Messi confirmed the news on his Twitter account, writing: &#8220;Afghanistan Football Federation has confirmed that Messi will meet his 5-year-old fan Murtaza at Camp Nou [in Barcelona].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>AFF spokesman Sayed Ali Kazemi told Qatari news agency Al Jazeera earlier that the federation had been contacted by Messi&#8217;s management team &#8220;and expressed interest in meeting the boy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Ahmadi lives in the Jaghori district of Afghanistan\u2019s eastern Ghazni province<\/p>\n<!-- Error, Advert is not available at this time due to schedule\/geolocation restrictions! -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona star Lionel Messi is hoping to arrange a meeting with an Afghan boy who shot to fame after pictures of him dressed in a striped plastic bag jersey went viral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,135,127],"tags":[2052,6918,76775,5664,17182],"class_list":["post-57818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-football","category-sport","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-la-liga","tag-barcelona-spain","tag-lionel-messi","tag-lionel-messi-barcelona"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}