"I love playing football and I'm going to do it until I can't anymore." Lionel Messi said it plainly, no fanfare — which somehow makes it land harder. He turns 39 this month. He is preparing for his sixth World Cup. And right now, he is working out alone in Kansas City while a hamstring problem keeps him away from the main group.
This is the picture Argentina go into the 2026 World Cup with: their all-time greatest player, the reigning world champions, and a fitness situation that nobody in Buenos Aires is comfortable talking about.
A squad built to defend — if everyone holds together
Messi is not the only concern for coach Lionel Scaloni. Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez — the man who saved two penalty shootouts in Qatar — fractured a finger on his right hand in the Europa League final. Defender Cristian Romero is managing a knee injury picked up in April. Multiple right backs and a key midfielder are also carrying muscle problems.
Scaloni, to his credit, has not panicked. He is leaning on 17 of the 26 players who lifted the trophy in 2022, battered edges and all. "Why change them if they don't deserve that?" he said. "Their level hasn't dropped." It's a loyalty-based selection, and probably the right call — this squad knows how to win tournaments, which is a rarer quality than fitness.
But Argentina's odds of going back-to-back, which would make them the first team to do so since Brazil in 1962, hinge almost entirely on how much Messi they actually get. A fit Messi for six matches is a different proposition entirely from a cautiously managed Messi playing 60 minutes a game.
The records, the hints, and what comes after
He already holds the record for World Cup appearances with 26. Four more goals puts him past Miroslav Klose's all-time record of 16. The numbers frame a farewell tour even if Messi has avoided saying so explicitly.
Last September, after Argentina's qualifier against Venezuela in Buenos Aires, he gave the clearest signal yet. "It was very emotional, knowing this was my last competitive match here," he said at the Monumental. That is about as close to a retirement announcement as Messi gets.
Scaloni does not want to think about it. "I prefer to think about the present," he said. Most Argentine fans feel the same way.
Argentina open Group J on June 16 against Algeria in Kansas City, then face Austria on June 22 and Jordan on June 27 in Arlington. Three winnable matches on paper — but the margin for error shrinks considerably if their captain is not fully fit by the time the knockout rounds arrive.
"We have to get excited, like Argentines always do, but we also have to know that there are other favorites ahead of us who are in better form," Messi said. He is not wrong. And his hamstring knows it too.
