Lionel Messi walked off at MetLife Stadium on Sunday night a beaten finalist, and then he said nothing at all about the rest of it.
Spain beat Argentina 1-0 after extra time in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Ferran Torres settling it early in the second period of extra time after Nico Williams headed the ball into his path. Argentina finished with 10 men. The obvious question, the one every Argentine has been asking since, went unanswered: was that the last we will see of Messi in the blue and white?
No formal goodbye
Here is what is actually confirmed, rather than assumed. Messi, now 39, has not announced his retirement from international football. Per Yahoo Sports, he has "not officially announced his retirement from international soccer," even if he had hinted before the final that this World Cup would be his last with Argentina.
Those hints were hard to miss. He wore custom boots stitched with the words "The Last Tango" and shared a farewell letter with his teammates, per Yahoo Sports. ESPN noted that he had already described the tournament as his last World Cup. None of that is the same as walking away from the national team altogether, and he has stopped short of saying so.
There is a distinction worth holding onto. Calling a World Cup your last is not the same as retiring from your country. Messi has only ever said the former, and a farewell tournament can still be followed by a friendly or two.
A final to forget
The performance did little to soften the sense of an ending. Messi managed one shot, blocked, and did not touch the ball inside the Spain box across more than 120 minutes, per ESPN. Argentina did not register a single effort in normal time, their first shot of any kind arriving in the 115th minute, which ESPN called a record of futility for a World Cup final.
It got worse late on. Enzo Fernandez was sent off in second-half stoppage time for a second yellow after upending Pau Cubarsi, and Argentina played the closing stages a man light. For a side that had lost to Germany in 2014, beaten France in 2022 and come again here, it was a flat way to bow out. This was Argentina's third final in the last four World Cups, per ESPN, and comfortably their quietest.
Messi still leaves the tournament as one of its most productive names. He finished with eight goals and four assists, per ESPN, numbers that carried Argentina to the final even as the last night deserted him.
Where he goes next
The club picture, at least, is settled. Messi is under contract at Inter Miami through the 2028 MLS season, per Yahoo Sports, so his day job is not in question whatever he decides about Argentina. A place at the 2030 World Cup, when he would be 43, looks highly unlikely, as Yahoo Sports acknowledged.
That leaves the international door somewhere between ajar and closed. He has not retired. He has not committed to another campaign either. Everything points to a farewell, from the boots to the letter to his own words, yet the formal line has not been drawn, and until it is, anyone claiming to know his next move is guessing.
For now the answer is the honest one. Messi has not said goodbye to Argentina, and he has not said he is staying. The next word, whenever it comes, will be his.
Sources
- Yahoo Sports
- ESPN
- Cover photo: Lionel Messi / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
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