The Unforgettable Journey of Lionel Messi and Argentina's National Team
For a decade, Lionel Messi was the player Argentina couldn't forgive. Then he won everything, lost one more final, and the country thanked him regardless.
On the night of 26 June 2016, minutes after a Copa América final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Lionel Messi told an Argentine TV reporter that the national team was over for him. He had just put the first penalty of a shootout over the crossbar. Chile won 4–2. It was the fourth final he had lost with Argentina.
"It's been four finals, it's not meant for me," he said.
Ten years and three weeks later he lost a fifth final, in the same stadium. That night thousands of Argentines went to the Obelisk in Buenos Aires anyway. Their message was two words: "Gracias iguales." Thanks anyway.
Lionel Messi's Early Years With Argentina
Messi's Argentina career opened with a red card. He came on against Hungary in August 2005, weeks after winning the Under-20 World Cup, and was sent off in under a minute. It was the last time anyone could call him a surprise.
Argentina had not won a senior trophy since the 1993 Copa América. Barcelona was turning him into the best player alive, and the country wanted that player in its own shirt. It also wanted a specific kind of player. Diego Maradona's 1986 World Cup had arrived barely three years after the end of a military dictatorship, and it was remembered as something close to a political event. Messi had left for Spain at thirteen and was quiet, reserved, a poor fit for the template. Some read that as a lack of passion. Crowds chanted Maradona's name at his games.
The results didn't help. He lost the 2007 Copa América final 3–0 to Brazil at the age of twenty. In 2010, with Maradona himself as coach, he went through a World Cup without a goal as Germany won 4–0.
From World Cup Heartbreak to Copa América Defeats
By 2014 the team was built around him. In Brazil he scored four goals in the group stage and none after, and Argentina reached the final anyway. Against Germany at the Maracanã, Mario Götze scored in the 113th minute. In the last seconds of extra time, Messi stood over a free kick and sent it over the bar.
Then FIFA gave him the Golden Ball, for the tournament's best player, and he climbed the steps to collect it past the trophy he had come to win. Maradona, who won the same award in 1986, said on his television show, "I could see he didn't want to go up and collect it." He called the decision a marketing one and preferred James Rodríguez.
A year later in Santiago, Chile beat Argentina on penalties in the Copa América final. Argentina scored once in the shootout, and it was Messi's. Then came the rematch in New Jersey: the same opponent, the same 0–0 draw. This time Messi took the first kick and missed it. Cameras found him crying on the bench.
The reaction shows how the country really felt. President Mauricio Macri tweeted #NoTeVayasLio, Don't Go, Leo, and called him "a gift from God." Al Jazeera's reporter on the ground noted that the man many had accused of not caring enough had suddenly appeared in pictures everywhere. Seven weeks later Messi reversed his decision. "My love for my country and this shirt is too great," he said, adding that he preferred to help from within than criticise from outside.
Messi's Argentina Redemption Begins
Russia 2018 was worse than the table suggested. Argentina drew with Iceland as Messi missed a penalty, lost 3–0 to Croatia, and survived the group only because Marcos Rojo scored in the 86th minute against Nigeria. France then won 4–3 in the last 16. Messi vanished from the squad. That October, Maradona told Fox Sports Mexico that Messi was no leader, took a swipe at his habits before matches, and said, "Let's stop making a god out of Messi." He later claimed he had never been talking about Messi at all.
The man left to lead the team was Lionel Scaloni, an assistant promoted to caretaker after better-known coaches said no. In March 2019 he talked Messi into coming back.
Four months later, at the Copa América in Brazil, Argentina lost the semi-final 2–0 to the hosts. Messi was sent off in the third-place match after a scuffle with Chile's Gary Medel, skipped the medal ceremony and said the tournament was rigged for Brazil. CONMEBOL banned him for three months and fined him $50,000. Even so, ESPN wrote at the time that he had grown into the idea of leading this new generation.
Scaloni's players had grown up on Messi posters. When Messi debuted at a World Cup in 2006, eight of the starters Scaloni now relied on weren't yet fifteen. When he returned in 2019, Rodrigo De Paul told Leandro Paredes they should invite Leo over for a mate.
From Maracanã Glory to World Cup Triumph
On 10 July 2021, at the Maracanã, Ángel Di María scored in the 22nd minute and Argentina beat Brazil 1–0. A 28-year wait was over. Messi, the tournament's best player, dropped to his knees and put his face in his hands. Di María said Messi had told him beforehand that this was Di María's final, the rematch for the 2016 one he missed through injury. Messi's own explanation was simple: "I feel that God was saving this moment for me."
Before the 2022 World Cup he told Jorge Valdano what had shifted. Another lost final against Brazil would have brought more criticism, Messi said. Instead, Argentina had stopped judging everything by winning or losing, and the press and the public had changed their minds a little.
The Finalissima, a 3–0 win over Italy at Wembley in June 2022, was his second senior title with Argentina. The World Cup in Qatar was the third. Argentina lost their opening game to Saudi Arabia, and Messi went on to score seven goals, set up three, and win the Golden Ball, this time lifting the trophy as well. In the final he scored twice in a 3–3 draw with France, then took Argentina's first penalty in the shootout, as he had in 2016. This time it went in. It finished 4–2, the same score as in New Jersey, with the colours reversed. Olé's front page said "We are world champions!" and its report said the Cup was lifted by "the best." Maradona had died in November 2020 and saw neither title.
In 2024 Argentina beat Colombia 1–0 after extra time to win another Copa América. Messi left the field injured and in tears before Lautaro Martínez scored the winner. That made four senior trophies in three years.
At the 2026 World Cup he scored a hat-trick against Algeria at 38, the oldest player to do so at a World Cup, and finished with eight goals and four assists. Then he started his third World Cup final, a first for any player, and Spain won it 1–0 in extra time. Argentina's first shot came in the 115th minute. Messi touched the ball 54 times. In 2016 a loss like that had ended it for him. In 2026 the Obelisk filled up.
Messi's Final Goodbye to Argentina
Messi announced his retirement from Argentina on 31 August, in an Instagram post showing a handwritten note. He had written it on 21 July, two days after the final, and held it for six weeks. His father and agent, Jorge, died on 8 August, aged 68, and Messi said that made him even surer. He wrote that "I don't have anything more to give" and that younger players deserved their place. He signed off by thanking God "for making me Argentine," according to the post.
That makes this a formal retirement, in his own words, and nothing in his statement leaves room for a return. The farewell does not change that. The federation invited him back after he had retired, for a friendly against Benin, ranked 93rd in the world, at the Monumental on 6 October. All 85,018 tickets sold in about two hours and his 2022 teammates were asked to attend. His 208th and final cap came on Tuesday night. He remains at Inter Miami.
He leaves as Argentina's top scorer, with 125 goals in 207 games before Benin, as well as its all-time assist leader and most-capped player. Only Cristiano Ronaldo, with 146 for Portugal, has scored more internationally. When Messi first quit, in 2016, he had 55. He played six World Cups and scored 21 goals in them. For nearly 16 years he won no senior trophy with Argentina; in the next three he won four. Add the 2005 Under-20 World Cup, the 2008 Olympic gold, eight Ballons d'Or and four Champions Leagues, and he is among the most decorated footballers in history.
On Monday morning in Rosario, where he was born, a giant Argentina shirt went up in front of the national flag monument. Gold number 10. Under it, one word: GRACIAS.
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