Last month, a 5-year-old boy in Afghanistan became famous on the Internet. A photograph of him went viral. That means people around the world saw the picture, and shared it with their friends and followers.
The boy was wearing a Lionel Messi soccer jersey made from a plastic bag.Messi plays soccer — a game known as football to most of the world — for Argentina’s national team.He also plays for the Barcelona club team. The 5-year-old used a blue-and-white striped bag to recreate Messi’s Argentina jersey. He wrote “Messi” and the number 10 on the back.
The boy’s name is Murtaza Ahmadi. He became so famous that the Afghanistan Football Federation began working to set up a meeting between him and the sports star.
Murtaza Ahmadi, a five-year-old Afghan Lionel Messi fan, plays football at the Afghan Football Federation Stadium in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016.
This week, the Afghanistan Football Federation told the media that Messi’s representatives have been in contact. An Afghan federation official told The Guardian newspaper that if Messi could not meet with Murtaza in Afghanistan, the federation would fly the boy to meet with him in Spain.
Also this week, new photos of the 5-year-old have gone viral. This time, though, he is wearing an official Messi jersey from his Barcelona club team.
And that’s What’s Trending Today….
I’m Ashley Thompson.
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Words in This Story
viral – adj. relating to or involving an image or video that spreads rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another.
jersey – n. a loose shirt worn by a member of a sports team as part of a uniform
striped – adj. having stripes or bands of color
federation – n. an organization that is made by joining together smaller organizations