Lionel Messi's farewell for Argentina is on 6 October. Few greats scored in theirs.
Argentina have called up Lionel Messi for a friendly against Benin in Buenos Aires on 6 October. It will be his last game for his country.
What happened
Argentina named Lionel Messi on for a friendly against Benin at the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires on , a match set up as his farewell to international football.
Messi is called up only for the last of three home friendlies in the October international window. Argentina play Bolivia in Córdoba on and Burkina Faso in Buenos Aires on . Messi plays only against Benin at River Plate’s Estadio Monumental on . The stadium holds 85,000.
The president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), Claudio Tapia, said the game is meant to give Messi a proper farewell. He invited the players who won the 2022 World Cup to attend.
Messi said on that he was retiring from the national team, seven weeks after Argentina lost the 2026 World Cup final to Spain. In his statement he said that not much of his career was left.
He leaves as Argentina’s record scorer with 125 goals and the player with the most games for the country, 207. He has won the Ballon d’Or, the award for the world’s best player, eight times.
Messi still plays club football in the United States. His contract with Inter Miami runs to the end of the 2028 season. He scored four goals against Montreal on and his 19th league goal of the season against Nashville on . The Major League Soccer (MLS) season ends with the MLS Cup final on .
Sources: BBC, The Guardian (2, 3), Al Jazeera, MLS
The Pattern
We looked for friendlies since 2000 that were named in advance as a great attacking player’s last game for their country, in men’s and women’s football. Great means the player had their country’s record for goals or for games, or had won the Ballon d’Or or the FIFA world player award. Of the last eight, only Robbie Keane scored. Four of the eight are women’s games, which makes the comparison with Messi weaker. Wayne Rooney is the closest case: England recalled him for one game after he had already retired.
Show the other 6 cases
The Read
History says a farewell friendly rarely ends with a goal for the player it honours. One of the last eight did, and one in ten if two older games are counted. Most of the players who missed were on the pitch for a short time: Tim Cahill played eight minutes, Wayne Rooney 33 and Landon Donovan 41. Robbie Keane, the one scorer, played 56 minutes against Oman.
Messi is different from most of them. He is a first-choice forward for Inter Miami and scored his 19th league goal of the season on . The nearest cases are Rooney, recalled by England for one game after he had retired, and Keane, who was also still playing in MLS when he said goodbye. Argentina have not said whether Messi will start or how long he will play.
The goal market is lost if the farewell turns into a short ceremonial run like Cahill’s, or if Messi does not play at all. The Guardian noted on that the invitation still needed his acceptance. The second market asks what comes after. Five players in these cases were still playing club football and had not named an end date, and none of them announced their retirement within ninety days of the farewell. Cahill came closest, at 128 days. Messi’s own words on are the reason this market does not sit at zero.
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