From Rosario Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

In Rosario, a boy put a dream
inside a football
and taught it to travel.

Then came the years of almost
finals closing like iron jaws,
a nation pouring its grief
into his small, stubborn shadow.

Still, he returned.
Again.
And again.

For some flames fear the wind;
his learned its name.

In 2021,
the blue and white finally found a sky.

Then Qatar
December 18
and the World Cup
settled into his hands
as if it had always known the way home.

He lifted it,
and somewhere beneath the roar,
a thousand broken years
began to breathe.

The old ghosts lost their voices;
the boy kept threading the dark
with his left foot.

Now, if the shirt falls silent,
let the grass remember his footsteps.

Let every boy who bends a ball
toward an impossible corner
hear the echo:

Gracias, Capitán.

From Rosario, he came carrying a dream.
He leaves us carrying the proof

that sometimes
the impossible
has a left foot.