Feature: Afghanistan's "mini Messi" dreams of becoming a football star

Dressed in a tatty Messi soccer jersey styled from a plastic bag and often seen playing on the muddy ground in front of his house in the eastern Ghazni province, the little Afghan fan dreamed of becoming a football star like FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi one day.

"My greatest desire is to meet Messi one day, to learn from him and become a football star like him one day," five-year-old Murtaza Ahmadi told Xinhua on Saturday.

With his room adorned with Messi's posters and playing outside in the chilly winter, the kid known locally as Messi-e-Kochak (junior Messi) among villagers and playmates, said he loved playing football and practising Messi's skills when playing with friends.

The little Afghan soccer aficionado has received worldwide fame after his photos dressed in a rag-tag, homemade Messi jersey, were posted on Facebook by his elder brother Hamayon.

Internet users on seeing the pictures of the little Messi were quick to launch a global search to identify the young fan, and initially an Iraqi television program claimed that the boy was from Kurdistan in Iraq.

However, Murtaza's uncle and some Afghan youths set the record straight online and correctly identified one of Messi's youngest fans and his locale, as being in the mountainous district of Jaghori in Ghazni province.

Living along with his eight-member family in the remote village of Qambar, which is situated in the relatively peaceful Jaghori district some 150 km south of Kabul, the young enthusiast played everyday with a deflated ball, hoping his dreams of becoming a soccer star will one day come true.

Inspired by Messi's personality and achievements on the football ground, the Afghan boy had never missed watching one of Messi's matches, Murtaza's father Arif Ahmadi, 44, told Xinhua.

"My son has repeatedly asked me to buy Messi's official jersey but I cannot afford it. It would cost me around 600 afghani (around 10 U.S. dollars) and that's too much," Ahmadi, who works as farmer, said.

"One day, Murtaza brought home a plastic bag from his uncle's house and asked his brother Hamayon to fashion it into a shirt like Messi's," Ahmadi said, adding his brother Hamayon finally made the shirt with Messi's name scrawled on it in with a marker pen, and put the now famous picture on Facebook.

Confirming Murtaza to be one of Messi's most ardent fans, his mother, Shafiqa Ahmadi, 35, said her son always mentioned Messi's name and played with his punctured ball almost every day, while dreaming of becoming a soccer star.

"My son Murtaza often watches football on television and always gets excited whenever Messi takes the ball in any football match," Shafiqa Ahmadi said.

Murtaza's rival in the village is his teenage cousin Jawad, a staunch fan of Real Madrid, with a minor feud beginning between the pair after Murtaza became an online sensation, local villagers said.

"It would be amazing if Messi could arrange for my son to meet him in person and help my son to become a football star and, perhaps, build a football stadium in Jaghori to promote football to other budding young players like my son in the region," Murtaza's father said hopefully. Endit