Lionel Messi announces retirement from international football

Lionel Messi has decided that his international career is over, one month after Argentina lost the 2026 World Cup final to Spain. The 39-year-old captain made the announcement in a statement posted on Instagram, saying the decision followed a long period of reflection.

“After all this time since the final match, and after long reflection, I want to announce to everyone that I have decided to retire from playing with the national team,” Messi wrote. He said the choice remained painful, but that the time had come to step away.

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After all this time since the final match, and after long reflection, I want to announce to everyone that I have decided to retire from playing with the national team.

The 2026 tournament marked Messi’s sixth World Cup appearance. It also brought his second appearance in a World Cup final, following Argentina’s loss to Germany in the 2014 final in Brazil. Four years later, he led Argentina to the title in Qatar.

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It was a painful decision, and it still hurts me deep down, but I realise that the time has come.

Messi’s later international success helped reshape a career once marked by repeated disappointment with Argentina. He won the Copa América in 2021 and again helped the team claim the tournament in 2024. His statement presented the decision as the closing of a long journey rather than a rejection of the national team.

“There is not much left, and the stages have begun to reach their end, and this is one of them that hurts me greatly,” he wrote. Messi said he had given everything he could and believed a group of talented young players deserved their opportunity.

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I have exhausted everything I have, and I no longer have any more to give, alongside the presence of a group of wonderful young players who deserve to get their chance.

He thanked supporters, his family, coaches, teammates and officials. “I will become one of you, always supporting and backing the national team from the outside, in good times and bad, and especially in the difficult times,” he wrote. Messi said he would miss hearing supporters from inside the stadium, but would continue following Argentina from beyond the pitch.

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I will become one of you, always supporting and backing the national team from the outside, in good times and bad, and especially in the difficult times.