Three generations of Atlanta women keep family tradition and a poem for Lionel Messi alive

For one Atlanta family, Argentina's World Cup match is about more than soccer. It's about carrying a family tradition from one generation to the next.

As Argentina takes the field in Atlanta, four generations of the Benitez family: grandmother Marielena Frances-Benitez, daughter Marcela Benitez, Marcela's wife Rachel Benitez, and 1-year-old Luisa Benitez are celebrating a love for their home country, Lionel Messi, and the memories that have connected their family for decades.

"Even though I don't maybe remember the details," Marcela Benitez said, "I remember the feeling."

Marcela spent childhood summers in Buenos Aires before moving to Atlanta a decade ago. Now, she and Rachel are raising Luisa to embrace the same Argentine traditions that shaped her childhood.

That tradition began with Marcela's mother, Marielena, a lifelong Messi supporter who has followed his career since his earliest days as a professional.

"To marry into the Argentina soccer culture is a whole thing," Rachel Benitez said. "I've learned a lot."

Inside their Atlanta home, Messi represents more than championships.

He represents family.

At the center of that story is Marcela's late father, Rubén Benitez, a poet and professor of Spanish literature.

In 2012, before Messi won a World Cup with Argentina, Rubén wrote a poem celebrating the soccer star and the pride they shared in their hometown of Rosario.

"Rubén wrote a poem for Messi and gave it to me as a present," Marielena Frances-Benitez said. "I just felt that was the greatest present."

Rubén died three years ago, but his poem remains one of the family's most treasured possessions.

"My dad passed away three years ago," Marcela Benitez said. "He was a poet, he was a professor of Spanish literature."

Before each World Cup, the family reads the poem together and has carried it to matches over the years, hoping Messi will one day see it.

"I wish Messi could ever read this poem," Marielena Frances-Benitez said. "Because he wrote it before Messi had won anything with Argentina."

For Rachel, the poem has become a way to keep Rubén's legacy alive while introducing Luisa to the family's history.

"His art lives on in our lives," Rachel Benitez said. "His mannerisms, his face lives on in the next generation."

Whether they watch inside the stadium or alongside fellow Argentina supporters at a local watch party, the Benitez family says this World Cup is about more than the outcome of a match.

It is a celebration of a husband, a father and a grandfather whose words continue bringing his family together one World Cup, and one generation, at a time.