Afghan boy becomes Internet star after plastic shirt goes viral
JAGHORI: A five-year-old Afghan boy has become an Internet star after pictures went viral of him wearing an Argentina football shirt made out of a plastic bag, complete with his hero Lionel Messi's name.
Murtaza Ahmadi has never met his idol and lives in a Taliban-controlled area of Afghanistan but footage and photos of him wearing the improvised shirt, with Messi's named scrawled in marker pen, went round the world.
Murtaza's elder brother Homayoun, 15, made him the shirt and first posted the photos of Murtaza wearing it on Facebook two weeks ago.
After creating waves on social media there were claims Argentina and Barcelona star Messi wanted to find his young fan and give him a proper jersey.
Murtaza, whose father admitted he could not afford to buy him a replica jersey, said he had only a punctured ball to play with in his village in Afghanistan's Ghazni province.