Lionel Messi has played his last game for Argentina.
On Tuesday, October 6, the Argentina legend signed off with a penalty and two assists in a 3-0 win over Benin at the Monumental. It was his 208th cap, and his 126th goal. If it was a Hollywood movie, It might have been scripted, but that kind of magic is what people have come to expect from that little boy from Rosario.
So NBG Africa is doing what any decent football writer would do, ranking the best bits. 
Ten items, naturally, because Messi wore the No. 10 shirt like it was stitched onto his soul. Counting down from 10 to 1, which feels fitting for a player who spent two decades making defenders count backwards.
One housekeeping note. Picking ten moments from a 21-year career is like picking ten stars from the sky. Some of your favourites will miss the list, and that’s fine. Editorial privileges, baby!
10. The Debut That Lasted Roughly One Minute
Every legend needs an origin story, and Messi’s is gloriously ridiculous. On August 17, 2005, he made his senior debut against Hungary in Budapest. He was sent off almost immediately after coming on, for allegedly swinging an arm at a defender.
Accounts vary from 47 seconds to under two minutes, because even history can’t agree on how fast a teenager can get himself dismissed.
The red card was widely seen as harsh. He wept in the dressing room, and a career that would eventually produce 66 international assists, an all-time record, started with a shower and a long cry.
It is the greatest “you should see where I ended up” story in football.
9. Beijing 2008: The Gold Medal That Nigeria Remembers
Here is one for the home crowd.
At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, a young Lionel Messi dragged his club into a legal tussle with Barcelona to even be allowed to play. Barcelona relented, and Argentina beat Nigeria 1-0 in the final to take gold.
Messi scored twice in the tournament, including a cheeky chip against Ivory Coast. Nigerian fans will remember the Super Eagles coming agonisingly close. Messi remembers it as the first major medal of his Argentina career, and a sign of what was coming.
READ: Cristiano Ronaldo Finally Breaks Silence on Portugal Walkout: “Coach Failed to Keep His Word”
8. 2014: The Golden Ball Nobody Wanted
Sometimes you win the individual prize and it feels like ashes in your mouth.
At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Messi scored four goals and collected four straight man-of-the-match awards. He bagged an injury-time winner from 23 yards against Iran and a brace in a 3-2 thriller against Nigeria. He then converted in the semi-final shootout against the Netherlands.
Argentina reached the final, where Mario Götze’s 113th-minute goal gave Germany a 1-0 win. Messi took home the Golden Ball while looking like a man who had just been handed a participation certificate at a funeral. It was a brilliant tournament with a cruel ending.
The ending would be rewritten, just not yet.
7. Quito 2017: Single-Handedly Booking a World Cup Ticket
Picture this. It is October 2017, and Argentina, the two-time world champions, start the day sixth in qualifying. Then Ecuador scores after 38 seconds. A World Cup without Argentina, for the first time since 1970, suddenly feels very possible.
Enter Lionel Messi. He scored in the 12th minute, again in the 20th, and then completed a hat-trick with a sublime chip just after the hour, in the thin air of Quito.
Argentina won 3-1 and qualified for Russia 2018. Coach Jorge Sampaoli put it best: “football owed the World Cup to Messi”. Quito was Messi paying that debt forward, one goal at a time.
6. Copa América 2021: The Drought Ends at the Maracanã
For years, the criticism followed Lionel Messi around like an unpaid bill. “He couldn’t win with Argentina,” they said. He lost the 2014 World Cup final and consecutive Copa América finals in 2015 and 2016.
Then came July 2021, at the Maracanã, against Brazil. Argentina won 1-0 and ended a 28-year wait for a major senior trophy. Messi was named the tournament’s best player and its top scorer. The sight of him lifting that trophy, finally, turned a nation’s long grumble into a roar. It cracked open the floodgates for everything that followed.
5. Finalissima 2022: Messi the Waiter
This one is underrated, but we’re not letting it slide. In June 2022, South America’s champions met Europe’s champions. Argentina beat Italy 3-0 at Wembley, with Messi supplying two assists and pulling the strings all night.
It was a masterclass in not needing to score. He ghosted around the pitch, picked passes defenders hadn’t dreamed of, and left Italy looking like they were chasing a bus. The trophy was Argentina’s second in under a year.
It was also a quiet warning that something very big was coming in Qatar.
4. Copa América 2024: Winning It on One Leg (And a Lot of Tears)
Messi’s second Copa América came with a plot twist. In the 2024 final against Colombia, he hobbled off injured around the hour mark, crying on the bench like a man forced to star in his favourite film from behind the camera.
His teammates finished the job, and Argentina won 1-0 in extra time to retain the title.
The moment mattered because it showed the group had become bigger than one man. Messi had built a team that could win without him on the pitch, which is the highest compliment a captain can earn. It also meant he left with two Copa titles to go with his other silverware.
3. The Last Tango: Benin at the Monumental
Not every great moment is a trophy. Sometimes it is a stadium full of people being nice to one man for 90 minutes.
On October 6, some 85,000 tickets sold out in 90 minutes for the farewell match, dubbed “the last tango.” Messi delivered. He supplied the corner for Nicolás Otamendi’s header in the 48th minute and added another assist. He then buried a penalty to score his 126th and final international goal.
Messi cried, the stadium cried, and a solitary lap of honour followed. In a normal world, a retirement match is a gentle goodbye. Messi turned his into a goal-and-two-assists clinic. Show-off.
2. 2026: Rolling Back the Years (And Almost Doing It Twice)
Right, let’s talk about the fairy tale that nearly happened.
At 39, with a body that should have been collecting a pension, Lionel Messi produced the most productive World Cup of his career: eight goals and four assists across seven games.
He opened with a hat-trick against Algeria, exactly 20 years to the day after his World Cup debut, becoming the oldest man to score three in a World Cup game. He then equalled Miroslav Klose’s all-time record, followed with a brace against Austria, and scored off the bench against Jordan.
Then came the England semi-final. Messi set up late goals for Enzo Fernández and Lautaro Martínez in a 2-1 comeback win. He also became the first man to start three World Cup finals.
So where’s the “twice”? Two prizes slipped away by a whisker. Spain’s Ferran Torres scored the 1-0 winner early in the second half of extra time, denying Argentina a back-to-back title. Kylian Mbappé then scored twice in the third-place game, taking the Golden Boot and the all-time goals record from Messi, 22 to 21.
Torres summed it up: “When you have Messi on the other side, well, you are nervous.” Even in defeat, that line is a trophy.
1. Qatar 2022: The One Where Lionel Messi Finally Did It
And so we arrive at the top, where there was never really any competition.
Argentina lost their opening game of the 2022 World Cup to Saudi Arabia. The wheels looked ready to come off. Then Lionel Messi decided he’d had quite enough of that.
He scored seven goals and set up three more across the tournament. He won the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player, becoming the first man to take it twice. His penalty in the final made him the first player to score in the group stage, last 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of a single World Cup, per PA. In that final he scored twice, and Mbappé hit a hat-trick of his own. The game finished 3-3, then Argentina won 4-2 on penalties.
Messi lifted the trophy. His country’s first World Cup since 1986 was finally won, with Maradona’s shadow looking on approvingly. It was the one thing missing from a cabinet that already contained almost everything else.
The Flowers He Deserves
Lionel Messi leaves with the most caps and goals in Argentine history, and with the all-time international assists record. He also leaves with an Olympic gold, two Copa Américas, a Finalissima and a World Cup. He gave his country 21 years of joy, and he said it himself: “I swear I always gave everything.”
Greatest of all time? That debate will outlive all of us, and it will be loud. But the case is stronger than ever. The kid who got sent off in 47 seconds became the old master who nearly won a second World Cup at 39.
Gracias, Leo.
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