There are football retirements, and then there’s Lionel Messi saying goodbye to Argentina.
After 21 years with the national team, Messi played his 208th and final game for Argentina on October 6, closing a chapter that basically followed an entire generation of football fans from childhood into adulthood.
And because this is Messi, even the goodbye came with numbers.
Argentina beat Benin 3–0 at the Monumental in Buenos Aires, with Messi scoring from the penalty spot and setting up the other two goals. More than 85,000 people were there to watch his final appearance in the shirt.
The night was built around saying goodbye. Former teammates were invited, tributes filled the stadium and play was even stopped during the tenth minute as the crowd celebrated Argentina’s No. 10.
It closes one of football’s most complicated love stories.
For years, Messi’s Argentina career somehow came with the question of whether he could ever reproduce his Barcelona success for his country. There were lost finals, criticism and even a brief international retirement.
Then everything changed.
Argentina won the 2021 Copa América, another Copa América in 2024, and, obviously, the 2022 World Cup.
By the end, Messi wasn’t the guy Argentina kept asking to prove himself anymore. He was the captain who had basically completed football.
He finishes his international career with 126 goals, two Copa Américas and a World Cup.
Messi will continue playing club football with Inter Miami.
But Argentina’s No. 10 era? That one is officially over.
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