Jorge Horacio Messi died at Sanatorio Centro, a private clinic in his home city of Rosario, Argentina. An illness the family kept private through the World CupWord that something was wrong with Jorge first reached the public in mid-June, during Argentina's opening match of the 2026 World Cup. Lionel Messi scored all three goals in a 3-0 win over Algeria in Kansas City, a hat trick that pulled him level with Miroslav Klose's all-time World Cup scoring mark — yet he left the field visibly shaken. Newell's Old Boys, the Rosario club where a young Lionel first played, said Jorge had backed his son's rise with "vision, rigor, and affection." Jorge made the move to Spain with his son that year, while the rest of the family joined roughly a year later.