By Sachit Subba • Football • Sep 01, 2026 02:14 AM • 33 views
Lionel Messi played his final match in an Argentina jersey. On Monday, the 39-year-old announced his retirement from international football, bringing to an end a 20-year career, just days after Argentina were defeated by Spain in the 2026 World Cup final — falling one win short of a fairy-tale second title.
There can't be a perfect conclusion, but by any honest assessment, Messi had nothing further to prove.
Four years earlier, in Qatar, he had won the prize which had always eluded him by scoring seven goals during the tournament, including two in the dramatic final against France, before Argentina secured the title on penalties. That night ended a controversy that had affected him for ten years. Everything since — including this year's close call — was just an extra lap.
It wasn't always like this. For much of his career, Messi's relationship with the national team was taut, even hostile. Although he was brilliant at Barcelona, where the trophies came almost as a matter of course, it took him many years to transfer that ability into an Argentina shirt. After Argentina's loss in the 2014 World Cup final to Germany, he suffered consecutive defeats in the Copa America finals in 2015 and 2016. Following the second one—the penalty shootout loss to Chile—a disheartened Messi told reporters, "The national team is over for me." He really meant it, at least for a time.
He returned, and with Lionel Scaloni as coach, a change took place: Argentina moved on from a team built entirely around Messi and instead created a team centred on him — one that was hungrier, harder to break down and willing to carry out the defensive duties so that Messi's genius could take centre stage.
Messi's first senior international title came when Argentina defeated Brazil at the Maracanã in the 2021 Copa America. The World Cup came a year and a half later, and his doubters became supporters; the boy previously dismissed back home as "too Catalan" is now depicted on murals.
He didn't need to continue, yet he did — going from Paris Saint-Germain to Inter Miami, winning the Copa America in 2024 and making one final attempt at the 2026 World Cup. Although his explosiveness had diminished by then, his style of play had evolved with it: he sprinted less and spent more time stationary, while still being the best judge of space on the pitch. Argentina had also matured around him, reaching the final on July 19 as a seasoned unit rather than a team hoping for a moment of magic.
Spain did not grant him the double, but it makes very little difference since Messi leaves as a World Cup winner and a twice-crowned Copa America champion, and — after years of being compared to Diego Maradona, a comparison which once had the ring of an accusation — a legend now judged completely on his own merits.
