There are football matches that are remembered because of the scoreline, and there are matches that become part of a country's collective memory for reasons that have almost nothing to do with the final result.
Argentina’s 3-0 victory over Benin at Buenos Aires’ Monumental Stadium on October 6, 2026, belongs firmly to the second category.
The score was straightforward. Nicolás Otamendi scored, Nico Paz scored, Lionel Messi scored from the penalty spot. Argentina won comfortably.
But the real story was the man wearing number 10.
At 39, Lionel Messi played his final match for Argentina. After 21 years with the national team, six World Cups, seven Copa América tournaments, four senior international trophies and countless nights of triumph and disappointment, the most important chapter of his relationship with the Albiceleste finally came to an end.
And somehow, Messi managed to make the ending look exactly like him.
He created two goals.
He scored one.
He cried.
And then he walked around the Monumental one last time.

Buenos Aires said goodbye

The atmosphere around Buenos Aires was extraordinary long before kick-off.
More than 85,000 people filled the Monumental, with supporters arriving in Argentina shirts, carrying flags, wearing Messi's number 10 and turning the farewell into something closer to a national celebration than an ordinary international friendly.
A huge Argentina shirt bearing Messi's number 10 and the word “Gracias” was displayed in the stadium.
When the clock reached the tenth minute, the match stopped. The entire stadium applauded Messi while fireworks illuminated the night.
It was a simple gesture, but it captured the importance of the moment.
For more than two decades, Argentina had played with Messi at the centre of everything: its hopes, its frustrations, its expectations and eventually its celebrations.
Now the country was being asked to imagine the national team without him.
That is a very different challenge from replacing a normal footballer.

The final performance

Messi's final match was not simply a ceremonial appearance.
He still wanted to play.
He still wanted to create.
And he still wanted to win.
The first half was unusually emotional. Messi missed opportunities, struck the post and looked visibly frustrated at times. The occasion seemed to affect him as much as the people watching him.
Then came the second half.
In the 48th minute, Messi delivered a precise corner and Nicolás Otamendi finished the move to put Argentina ahead.
Thirteen minutes later, Messi created another moment that felt almost symbolic.
He found Nico Paz around the edge of the penalty area. The young midfielder controlled the ball and produced a curling left-footed finish into the far corner.
Argentina 2-0 Benin.
The image that followed was almost impossible to ignore: Paz celebrating, then looking for Messi.
It felt like a passing of the torch, although nobody should make the mistake of thinking that football works that neatly.
At the 71st minute, Messi stepped up for a penalty.
He scored.
His final Argentina goal was number 126.
Argentina won 3-0.
Messi had contributed to every goal.
It was a perfect footballing conclusion to an imperfect, extraordinarily complicated relationship.

208 appearances and a record book full of Messi

The final numbers tell their own story.
According to FIFA's final tribute, Messi finished with 208 appearances, 126 goals and 70 assists for Argentina, alongside 135 victories, 43 draws and 30 defeats.
Some statistical databases list a different assist total, generally 67 or 69, because assist definitions can vary. The important point is that there is no disagreement over the major records: Messi is Argentina's most-capped player and its all-time leading scorer.
His international career began in 2005.
It ended in 2026.
Twenty-one years.
Six World Cups.
Seven Copa América appearances.
Two Copa América titles.
One Finalissima.
One World Cup.
And a story that changed dramatically over time.

From a teenage red card to national immortality

Messi's Argentina story began in one of the strangest ways imaginable.
On August 17, 2005, he made his senior debut against Hungary.
He was sent off only seconds after entering the game.
The beginning was almost absurd.
The ending could not have been more different.
Before establishing himself in the senior team, Messi had already made his mark at youth level. He won the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2005 and later helped Argentina win Olympic gold in Beijing in 2008.
But the senior national team was different.
The expectations were enormous.
And for years, Messi could not escape one name.
Diego Maradona.

The impossible shadow of Maradona

Argentina did not simply want Messi to be great.
For much of his early career, Argentina wanted him to be the next Maradona.
That was the burden.
Maradona had won the 1986 World Cup and become the emotional symbol of an entire nation. His relationship with Argentina had an immediate, almost instinctive intensity.
Messi's was different.
He had moved to Spain as a teenager and developed at Barcelona. He became one of the greatest players in club football, but sections of the Argentine public initially questioned whether he truly belonged emotionally to the national team.
The criticism could be brutal.
He was accused of being too quiet, too distant, even of lacking the passion expected from an Argentine football hero.
And yet one of the most important people in Messi's story was the man whose shadow seemed impossible to escape.
Maradona himself.
In 2006, after watching an extraordinary Messi performance for Barcelona against Chelsea, Maradona declared that he had seen the player who would inherit his place in Argentine football.
The quote became famous.
Maradona called Messi his successor.
He saw similarities in their dribbling, imagination, personality on the pitch and ability to change a match almost by themselves.
But Messi himself never fully embraced that comparison.
In 2009, he said that Maradona had no real successor and that Diego would always remain the greatest for him and for many others.
That distinction matters.
Because history eventually proved that Messi did not need to become Maradona.
He became Messi.

The years of heartbreak

Before the trophies came the pain.
Argentina reached the 2014 World Cup final, only to lose to Germany in extra time.
Then came the Copa América finals of 2015 and 2016, both ending in defeat to Chile.
The 2016 loss was especially painful.
Messi missed in the penalty shootout and, overwhelmed by another final defeat, announced his temporary retirement from international football.
At the time, the relationship between Messi and Argentina appeared to be broken.
Instead, it was beginning to change.
People slowly started to understand something fundamental: Messi was not the reason Argentina kept losing finals.
He was the reason Argentina kept reaching them.

The Maracanã changed everything

On July 10, 2021, Argentina played Brazil in the Copa América final at the Maracanã.
Ángel Di María scored.
Argentina won 1-0.
Messi finally had his first major senior international title.
The reaction was overwhelming.
For years, people had asked whether Messi could win something with Argentina.
Now he had.
The emotional release was enormous because it was not just a trophy. It was the moment when the relationship between the player and the country changed.
The accusation that he did not care disappeared.
The argument that he could not deliver disappeared.
The endless question about whether he was worthy of the Argentina number 10 began to disappear too.

Wembley and Lusail

The next year, Argentina added another trophy.
At Wembley in June 2022, Messi and Argentina defeated Italy 3-0 in the Finalissima.
Then came Qatar.
Argentina lost its opening match to Saudi Arabia, creating another wave of doubts.
But Scaloni's team recovered.
Mexico.
Australia.
The Netherlands.
Croatia.
And then France.
The 2022 World Cup final became one of the most extraordinary matches in football history.
Argentina and France drew 3-3 after extra time.
Messi scored twice.
Kylian Mbappé scored a hat-trick.
Argentina won the penalty shootout 4-2.
Messi lifted the World Cup.
For Argentina, it was the third world title after 1978 and 1986.
For Messi, it was the trophy that completed the story.
And it changed the comparison with Maradona forever.
Maradona had his 1986 World Cup.
Messi had his 2022 World Cup.
They did not need to replace each other.
They had become the defining number 10s of two different Argentine football eras.

Another Copa América before the final chapter

Messi's Argentina story did not end in Qatar.
In 2024, Argentina won another Copa América, defeating Colombia in the final after extra time.
It was Messi's second Copa América title.
His senior international trophy collection had reached four:
Copa América 2021, Finalissima 2022, World Cup 2022 and Copa América 2024.
If his youth and Olympic achievements are included, the total becomes six major titles with Argentine national teams: the 2005 U-20 World Cup and the 2008 Olympic gold medal join those four senior trophies.

The final World Cup and the decision

Then came 2026.
Messi played in his sixth World Cup.
Argentina reached the final again.
This time, however, the ending was different.
Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the final, with Ferran Torres scoring in the 106th minute.
Messi finished his World Cup career as a champion in 2022 and a runner-up in 2014 and 2026.
On August 31, he announced that he was retiring from international football.
He wrote that the decision hurt, but that he understood the time had come.
He also said that he had given everything he had and that younger players deserved their opportunity.
The message was not an angry goodbye.
It was acceptance.

The personal pain behind the farewell

The final months of Messi's international career were also marked by the death of his father, Jorge Messi, in August 2026 at the age of 68.
Jorge was not simply Messi's father.
He had been one of the central figures in his development and career from the beginning.
At the Monumental, Messi's first thought after the final whistle was for him.
That made the farewell even more personal.
There was a footballing legend standing in front of more than 85,000 people, but also a son dealing with the end of an era and the loss of someone who had been beside him from the beginning.

“The shirt already misses me”

The day after the farewell, Messi published another emotional message.
He said he already missed wearing Argentina's shirt.
He said he knew he had made the right decision.
He thanked his family, teammates, coaches, clubs and supporters.
And he remembered Maradona.
Messi wrote that he did not want to forget Diego, describing him as someone who had taken Argentina where it deserved to be and saying he believed Maradona had helped them from heaven.
It was a remarkable way to close the circle.
The player who had once been called Maradona's successor was now leaving Argentina after writing a completely different story of his own.

Argentina's trophy history before and during Messi

Messi did not create Argentina's footballing tradition.
He became one of its greatest chapters.
Argentina's senior men's national team has won three World Cups:
1978, 1986 and 2022.
The 1978 title belonged to Mario Kempes and César Luis Menotti's generation.
The 1986 title belonged to Maradona and Carlos Bilardo's team.
The 2022 title belongs to Messi, Scaloni and their generation.
Argentina has also won 16 Copa América titles, including the two won during Messi's senior career in 2021 and 2024.
The country also won the 1992 Confederations Cup, as well as the 1993 Artemio Franchi Cup, the predecessor of the modern Finalissima, and the 2022 Finalissima against Italy.
At Olympic level, Argentina won gold in 2004 and 2008.
Messi was part of the 2008 Olympic-winning team.
And at Under-20 level, Argentina has a remarkable tradition, with Messi himself winning the 2005 World Cup at that age group.
This is why Messi's legacy cannot be reduced to one World Cup.
He arrived inside an already enormous football culture and helped create one of its most extraordinary eras.

What happens to the number 10 now?

The most obvious question is who comes next.
But perhaps the better question is whether anyone should be expected to replace Messi immediately.
Nico Paz offered the perfect image during the farewell.
He scored a beautiful goal from Messi's pass.
The veteran created the moment.
The young player finished it.
It looked like a symbolic handover.
But football history rarely works through direct succession.
Nobody replaced Maradona.
Nobody will truly replace Messi.
The next Argentina number 10 will have to create his own identity rather than live permanently under Messi's shadow.
That may be Nico Paz.
It may be another young player.
It may eventually be someone who has not even reached the national team yet.

Two number 10s, two different legends

Maradona gave Argentina the 1986 World Cup.
Messi gave Argentina the 2022 World Cup.
Maradona was immediate, explosive and deeply political in his relationship with the country.
Messi's relationship with Argentina developed slowly, through criticism, disappointment, persistence and eventually redemption.
Maradona once called Messi his successor.
Messi later rejected the idea that anyone could truly succeed Maradona.
Perhaps both were right.
Because Messi did not inherit Maradona's story.
He added another one.
And now Argentina has two eternal number 10s.

The end of the national-team Messi era

Messi is not retiring from football.
He continues his club career with Inter Miami, whose current contract runs into 2028.
But the weekly ritual of seeing him wear the Argentina shirt is over.
There will be no more World Cup night built around the question of whether Messi can save Argentina.
No more Copa América where every attack seems to begin with number 10.
No more national anthem with Messi standing in the centre of the line.
No more final whistle followed by the question of whether this will finally be the tournament.
That chapter is finished.
And perhaps that is why the final image at the Monumental felt so powerful.
Messi walked around the pitch.
He looked at the stands.
He raised his arms.
He cried.
The supporters cried.
The teammates gathered around him.
Then he disappeared into the tunnel.
The boy who was sent off after seconds on his Argentina debut had become the country's most capped player, its record scorer, a World Cup champion and one of the defining footballers of all time.
He spent years trying to win Argentina's love.
In the end, he did something much bigger.
He became part of Argentina's identity.
And when the final night came, nobody asked him to be Maradona.
Nobody asked him to prove anything.
They simply said goodbye.
Gracias, Leo.

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