Argentina bids Messi farewell in final national team match, ending an era
Argentina is facing a once-unthinkable reality: a national team without soccer great Lionel Messi.
39-year-old Messi On Tuesday (6 October), ended his 21-year international career after scoring 126 goals, winning two Copa América titles and a World Cup championship. He scored a penalty and assisted Argentina's other two goals in a 3-0 victory over Benin.
What would otherwise have been an ordinary friendly against the West African side turned into a moment the soccer-obsessed nation had long feared.
"It feels like an era is ending, knowing he won't play for the national team anymore," said Valentino Ruso, 17, who was on his way to a friend's house in Buenos Aires to watch the match. "I'm sad. I think everyone is upset today. He will be missed."
Argentines had a passionate and often harsh relationship with the shy boy who left his hometown of Rosario at 13 to join the youth academy of Spanish club Barcelona. As he developed into a global icon of almost mythical status, his compatriots both adored and criticized him, at times questioning his commitment to his homeland and accusing him of being indifferent to it.
By the end of his remarkable international career, however, there was no longer any doubt about Messi's devotion to Argentina. Nor was there any doubt about Argentina's affection for its most famous export, whose successes reminded the country of its ability to achieve greatness despite years of political and economic instability.
"Argentines often say, 'Thank God I was born at a time when I could experience the miracle of watching Messi play,'" said Andrés Rabinovich, a University of Chicago scholar who has researched soccer's role in Argentine culture. "It's hard living in Argentina. Soccer is often one of the few things that offers you some respite, some joy."
For years, Argentines debated when and how Messi should leave the international stage. His Aug. 31 announcement that he would retire from the national team, weeks after Argentina's defeat to Spain in the World Cup final, triggered an outpouring of gratitude and sadness, although Messi will continue playing for Inter Miami in Major League Soccer.
"I don't know if there has ever been a love story between a player and a nation as great as the one you built," teammate Rodrigo De Paul wrote on Instagram.
The Argentine soccer federation transformed Tuesday's game — Messi's 208th — into a national farewell dubbed "the last tango." More than 85,000 tickets for Buenos Aires' largest stadium sold out within 90 minutes. Tickets initially priced at around $60-$300 later sold for more than $2,500 on resale sites.
Players from Argentina's 1978, 1986 and 2022 World Cup-winning teams also returned to the stadium to bid farewell to Messi.
After the final whistle, Messi's eyes glistened as his teammates surrounded him and applauded. A roaring chorus of "Olé, olé, olé, olé, Messi, Messi" swept through the stands as tens of thousands of fans jumped, sang and bowed toward him. A banner at midfield declared him the "Eternal Captain."
"Even through the worst moments we went through, I never stopped fighting, battling, giving everything I had, wanting to always be here," Messi told the crowd, which erupted as though he had scored.
"I love all of you, and I will miss all of you. I am proud to be Argentine."
Winning over his own
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Messi collected trophies with his club and won devoted fans from Barcelona to Bangladesh. But a major international title with Argentina remained beyond his reach.
While the rest of the world saw a supernatural talent, some Argentines viewed him as an outsider who had never played professionally in Argentina and appeared unable to handle the enormous expectations placed on him.
Argentine fans chanted "Diego, Diego," referring to Diego Maradona, the larger-than-life hero of Argentina's 1986 World Cup triumph and reminding Messi of the standard he had yet to reach. Messi's quiet personality, sharply contrasting with Maradona's defiant swagger, also fueled questions about his patriotism.
After Argentina suffered a third straight final defeat in 2016, Messi briefly retired from international soccer.
"There's some resentment by the people that stay in Argentina for those who leave, this sense of, 'They think they're better than us,'" said Rabinovich, who identifies with Messi as a fellow teenage migrant. Rabinovich moved to Canada during Argentina's 2001 economic crisis, around the time Messi moved to Europe.
"The old-school Argentines would say, 'Diego is the Argentine. Messi is soft, a little Spanish boy,'" he said.
The turning point came in 2021, when Argentina defeated Brazil to win the Copa América, South America's championship, for the first time in 28 years.
Messi fell to the ground as his jubilant teammates ran to embrace him. The player who had long been accused of lacking emotion for his country could not stop crying.
"Winning clearly disarmed his critics. That's how soccer works in Argentina," said Diego Murzi, a sports sociologist at Conicet, Argentina's national scientific research council.
"Criticism of things off the field goes hand in hand with defeats on it," he said.
The following year's World Cup victory in Qatar cemented Messi's status as a national hero. He had secured the one major prize that had eluded him, prompting millions of Argentines to pour into the streets in celebration, chanting his name and wearing his No. 10 jersey.
"I'll never forget it. I'd never experienced anything like that, being out there with everyone, celebrating together," said Antonia Correa, 70, a kiosk owner, as she waited for a bus in Buenos Aires on Tuesday.
"We saw that he wasn't just an extraordinary player, but an excellent human being," she said.
In recent weeks, Argentine newspapers have been filled with nostalgic tributes, while murals celebrating Messi have appeared across the country.
La Nación, one of Argentina's leading newspapers, released "Immortal," a documentary about his final World Cup campaign, and published a 196-page special edition dedicated to his career.
Since June, a 26-meter (85-foot) statue of Messi kneeling with the World Cup trophy has stood over passing motorists in Patagonia. On Tuesday, Buenos Aires' iconic Obelisk was illuminated in sky blue and white, the colors of the national flag, while news websites followed every minute of the Benin friendly as though it were a World Cup final.
A jersey without an heir
Across Argentina, fans who grew up watching Messi as their parents watched Maradona have covered their bodies with tattoos honoring the soccer star, including portraits of him kissing the World Cup trophy.
It was easy to imagine that the world's greatest player would always be one of their own. But ahead of his farewell, Messi's No. 10 jersey had no designated successor, with coach Lionel Scaloni saying the decision would have to wait.
"I don't think we'll have somebody like him again, somebody with that sort of enduring power," said Pablo Brescia, a University of South Florida professor who writes about Argentine culture and soccer.
"Like Maradona, he'll be unique — a figure that can't be repeated."
Messi's contract with Inter Miami runs through the 2028 season. But the ritual of watching him carry Argentina's hopes and anxieties into every match has come to an end.
"Watching Messi play, you felt anything could happen," Murzi said. "I've seen him do things that I don't think I'll ever see another player do."
Source: AP/UNB