Dad helps his blind son witness Messi score at the World Cup
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: Newsflare
A young blind lad has been able to keep up with Lionel Messi's exploits at the World Cup with some help from his dad.
Sebastian Filoramo, 12, lost his sight at just seven months old, but he's a huge fan of Messi and listens to every match the Argentina superstar plays in.
He's able to follow the action with a helping hand or two from his dad Manuel Nuñez, who moves his son's hands around as the game changes while helping describe all the action for him.
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Sebastian has what he calls a 'touch court', a model of the pitch with embossed parts so as his hands move across it he can tell how the game is going.
In this way, Sebastian is able to know exactly where the ball is on the pitch and who has it, so he can still witness his hero scoring goals.
He was able to keep track of Messi's goal as the Argentina legend opened the scoring in their 2-0 World Cup win against Mexico.
Messi scored a wonderful effort from outside the box to get Argentina's World Cup campaign back on track following a shock opening 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabia and young Sebastian was overjoyed to witness the goal.
Manuel explained that even though his son was blind, he still loved following Messi's exploits over the footballer's incredible career, with the 12-year-old boy cheering with everyone else following the goal.
He said: "Sebastian is blind, he was born able to see for seven months but, due to the large amount of oxygen that was placed on him, his retinas burned.
"He and his family love Messi and were excited for the win. Sebastian yells 'MESSI WON! I KNEW IT!'"
Sebastian will be hoping he'll have more opportunities to celebrate more of Messi's goals at the World Cup as Argentina got out of their group and will clash with Australia in the first knockout round tomorrow (3 December).
While taking nothing for granted, you'd probably reckon Argentina are going to win that one, so it's a prime chance for Messi to score again.
The football legend has already got two goals at the World Cup, the wonder strike we saw Sebastian celebrating with his dad and a penalty against Saudi Arabia.
People who've seen the footage of Sebastian celebrating Messi's goal have said it's absolutely 'beautiful' and 'so emotional and sweet at the same time'.
Someone from Mexico even chimed in to say 'the goal doesn't hurt me any more' after seeing the 12-year-old's heartwarming reaction.
There was plenty of praise as well for Sebastian's dad for spending the games keeping his son up-to-date with all of the football, with people calling Manuel 'the best in the world'.