Two hundred and seven games played, one more to go and still it feels like the highest levels of the game should not be done with Lionel Messi. On Tuesday he will play his final game for the Argentinian national team, a friendly against Benin at Buenos Aires' Estadio Monumental that will function more as a send off to the class of 2022 and its brilliant leader. Messi will continue at club level, his contract with Inter Miami taking him to 2028, by which time he will be 41 years old.
A swansong at that year's Copa America never quite seemed guaranteed but it might have afforded him the sort of ending -- retaining Argentina's continental crown, perhaps while breaking the tournament's scoring record -- that only the greatest merit. Of course Messi has retired from international duty before but there was no way anyone could allow his ending to come after he missed a penalty against Chile in 2016. Too many Argentinian fans had hounded him, holding their best player primarily responsible for the trophies they had not won.
Now Messi will get the send off of a champion. On announcing his retirement in the weeks after his father's passing, he said he had "nothing left to give". It is also true that there was nothing left for Argentina to take.
Two Copa Americas and the long-awaited third World Cup. That's not to be sniffed at even if, based on his most recent performances, there might have been plenty more in the tank. Ultimately our last look at how Messi compares to the very best on the planet came at MetLife Stadium two months ago, the defeat to Spain that was in keeping with so much of his international career, the 10 men who relied on the greatest player of any generation unable to quite resist the strength of a true 11-man unit across the field.
The glory of Qatar was the exception rather than the rule, the year when the supporting cast did just enough, when Messi was the best he ever was. The tinge of disappointment in the ending is that 22 years through his senior career, Messi was still one of the best on the planet. Before the World Cup the question was whether his ludicrous form in MLS told us more about soccer in America than it did about its brightest star.
He offered the most resounding response he could, eight goals and four assists, a contender put on his back once more. To the last Messi was a magnificent outlier. He ended the tournament with 7.91 non-penalty expceted goals plus expected assists, more than 10 percent greater than second placed Kylian Mbappe.
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