Messi Bids Farewell to Argentina After 21 Years and 207 Caps

Some retirements arrive as a cold press release. Others close out twenty one years of history in a single stroke. On August 31, Lionel Messi confirmed his farewell to the Argentina national team, bringing an end to the longest chapter in Albiceleste soccer so far this century.

It all began on August 17, 2005, in a friendly against Hungary, when a teenager stepped onto the field and was sent off just minutes later. Back then, nobody could have imagined that the shy kid would go on to play 207 matches and score 125 goals for the national team, numbers that made him, without question, the all-time leading scorer for the Argentine squad.

Across those two decades, he saw it all: World Cups lost at the worst possible moments, a Copa America that eluded him for years, and finals that left deep scars. But redemption eventually came too. On December 18, 2022, in Lusail, Messi lifted the World Cup trophy, sealing at age 35 the one achievement still missing from an already towering career.

The Teammates Along the Way

No run this long is made alone. And if there's one name forever linked to Messi's in the national team, it's Angel Di Maria. The two shared the field in 113 matches (6,952 minutes), posting a record of 77 wins, 20 draws and just 16 losses. Few partnerships in national team history have lasted this long.

Still, if the measure is total minutes played alongside Messi, the podium looks different: Javier Mascherano played alongside him in 111 matches but racked up 8,954 minutes, while Nicolas Otamendi, with 106 appearances, reached 8,127 minutes, both surpassing Di Maria in that category. Further behind, well off that trio's pace, come Sergio Aguero (81 matches) and Sergio "Chiquito" Romero (76).

The ranking shifts once again when you look at who was most often involved in a goal alongside the Rosario native. There, Sergio Aguero leads the way with 17 shared goals, followed by Gonzalo Higuain (16), and then Di Maria and Lautaro Martinez, tied with 13 each. Closing out that group is Carlos Tevez, with 10 combined contributions.

These are the cold numbers behind a story that was always about far more than statistics: that of a kid who made his debut and got sent off in Budapest, and who left, two decades later, as the player with the most caps, the most goals and the most glory in the history of the Argentina national team.