Lionel Messi will return a week on Wednesday for his formal farewell in a friendly against Benin, but, before that, Argentina face two games when they will begin to experience a future without the most potent get-out-of-jail-free card football has known. Messi’s international career falls into two distinct halves. There was the first decade when there was a sense that he didn’t quite fit, was somehow insufficiently Argentinian, didn’t care for his country.
That was always absurd and can be recognised now as a manifestation of the Argentinian public’s frustration at their trophy drought despite the presence in their forward line of one of the best three to play the game. Then Messi retired, distraught after a missing a penalty in the shootout against Chile in the Copa América final in 2016. Suddenly, Argentina, rather than just lashing out at their biggest star, was forced to confront what it would mean to live without him.
The prospect was so appalling it provoked a mass campaign to encourage Messi to reverse his decision. Since then he has been loved and, despite a shambolic World Cup in 2018, has delivered with two Copas América, a World Cup and another World Cup final. His career was dogged by the accusation that he never matched Diego Maradona’s achievements in a national shirt; he ended up having won more.
This retirement will not be overturned. Those who persuaded him to change his mind in 2016 were perhaps imagining – hoping for – six more years: they got 10. There will be no second thoughts this time.
No longer when things are going awry will Argentina be able to turn to the superhero in their midst and ask him to fix it. The best example came almost at the end, when Argentina trailed Egypt 2-0 with 11 minutes of their World Cup last-16 tie remaining. Barcelona youth team coaches used to speak of the teenage Messi “getting the face on”, at which point he would be unstoppable.
It happened in Atlanta: it was as though Messi simply decided that wasn’t going to be his last World Cup game. Argentina won without needing extra time. Optimists will draw solace from the fact that Argentina’s best performance under Lionel Scaloni probably came in their 4-1 victory against Brazil in a World Cup qualifier in March 2025, when Messi did not play.
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