Messi Announces His Retirement from Argentina After 21 Years and a World Cup

It's over. Lionel Messi played his last match wearing the Argentina jersey, and on Monday he brought the curtain down on a journey that began when he was barely more than a teenager and ends with him established as the greatest figure the Albiceleste has ever produced. Twenty-one years after his debut, Messi announced his retirement from the national team.

That debut, incidentally, was about as rocky as it gets. It happened in August 2005, in a friendly against Hungary, and Messi barely got a minute on the field before he was sent off for elbowing an opponent. Nobody could have imagined back then that this 18-year-old kid would go on to become, in the eyes of many, the greatest soccer player of all time.

With Argentina, he played in six World Cups (2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 and 2026), a mark he shares with his longtime rival Cristiano Ronaldo. Across those tournaments, he scored 21 goals, a tally topped only by Kylian Mbappe, who has 22 World Cup goals, though the Frenchman reached that number in just three tournaments.

The one title that had eluded him? He finally got it in Qatar 2022, in a final for the ages. But that wasn't his only World Cup final: he also made it to the championship match in 2014, when Argentina fell to Germany, and again in 2026, where Spain walked away with the trophy.

Numbers That Tell the Story of an Unrepeatable Career

Messi bows out with 125 goals in international matches for the Albiceleste, more than double the total of the country's second-best all-time scorer, Gabriel Batistuta, who netted 54 goals in 78 appearances between 1991 and 2002. On the global stage, that figure trails only Cristiano Ronaldo's 146 goals for Portugal.

Something similar holds true for appearances: Messi played 207 matches for the national team, an all-time record for Argentina, though worldwide he again finishes second behind Ronaldo, who has racked up 233 caps for Portugal.

He departs at 39 years old, with a World Cup title to his name, three finals played, and a résumé that no other Argentine player is likely to match anytime soon. From the elbow that got him sent off in that debut against Hungary to lifting the trophy in Qatar, Messi's story with the national team turned out to be, numbers aside, one of those careers that gets told for generations.