Lionel Messi announces retirement from Argentina after World Cup final loss
Said on Monday he is retiring from Argentina’s national team, ending an international career that stretched across six World Cups and delivered the
Lionel Messi said on Monday he is retiring from Argentina’s national team, ending an international career that stretched across six World Cups and delivered the sport’s biggest prize in Qatar in 2022. The 39-year-old made the announcement in an Instagram post, two months after leading Argentina to the 2026 World Cup final, where it lost to Spain.
The message was personal, handwritten and final-sounding. Messi posted a notebook page in Spanish and said he had been weighing the decision since the final. “It was a decision that hurt — and still hurts deep down,” he wrote, adding that he had always given everything for the national shirt.
A farewell written after the final
Messi said he wrote the words on July 21, two days after the World Cup final, and later became even more certain after the death of his father, Jorge Messi, on Aug. 8 in Rosario. Jorge Messi was 68.
That footnote gave the announcement a sharper edge. The timing mattered. So did the grief.
Messi did not leave room for ambiguity in the post, saying he understood “the time has come” to step aside from the national team. He thanked fans by saying he always fought to bring joy and pride to Argentines through football.
An era that changed Argentina
The retirement closes one of the longest and most closely watched international careers in modern football. Messi played in six World Cups, won the tournament in 2022, and then took Argentina back to the final in 2026. He also collected two Copa América titles, in 2021 and 2024.
For Argentina, his departure lands like a curtain call. For the sport, it ends another chapter of a rivalry with time itself — the question of how long a player can keep bending a national team around his presence.
Messi’s national-team record also included runner-up finishes at the World Cup in 2014 and 2026, plus Copa América second-place finishes in 2007, 2015 and 2016. He won the Golden Ball at the 2014 and 2022 World Cups, and again at the 2015 and 2021 Copa América tournaments.
One last line from the notebook
Messi’s post ended with a note that tied the announcement to both the final and his father’s death: “Today, after what happened with my dad, I am even more convinced than before.”
For a player who has spent two decades carrying Argentina’s hopes, that line landed hard. The end came not in a stadium, but on a phone screen. A handwritten page. And one final sentence.
Six World Cups. One goodbye.
