"I love playing football, and I'm going to do it until I can't anymore." At 38, with a hamstring scare barely behind him and a penalty goal already bagged in his first minutes back in an Argentina shirt, Lionel Messi isn't coasting toward a farewell lap. He's competing.
Named in Lionel Scaloni's 26-man squad for the 2026 World Cup, Messi is poised to become the first player in history to appear in six tournaments. Not Ronaldo, not Matthaus, not Cafu. Nobody has done this. He is expected to reach 200 caps against Algeria in Kansas City on Tuesday — only the third player ever to hit that number, after Cristiano Ronaldo and Kuwait's Bader Al-Mutawa.
He said he was done. Then he wasn't.
After Argentina's win over France in Qatar in 2022 — two goals in the final, seven across the tournament — Messi said the quiet part out loud: "Obviously, I wanted to finish my career with this. I can't ask for any more." That looked like a full stop.
It wasn't.
He moved to Inter Miami in 2023, skipped European football entirely, and started enjoying himself again. This year he's scored 13 goals in 16 games in MLS, helped Miami win the Cup, and topped South American qualifying as the region's leading scorer. Not the same player he was at 27. But a player who still produces when the stakes are highest.
The hamstring substitution against Philadelphia last month gave Argentina fans a brief scare, and it's the kind of thing that sharpens focus in a betting market too — tournament outrights on Argentina hinge significantly on how much of Messi they actually get. A fit Messi through the knockout rounds is a different proposition than a squad managed through cameos.
Argentina chasing something Brazil last did in 1962
The broader ambition here is staggering. Argentina aren't just defending champions — they're hunting back-to-back World Cup titles, something no nation has managed since Brazil 64 years ago. Messi is the talisman for that push, and Scaloni has built the squad around his presence.
"We're all fully aware that this could well be Leo's last World Cup," said Julian Alvarez. "He's made a colossal impact the world over."
Messi first played a World Cup game as a teenager in Germany in 2006. He's now 38, playing in a league most Europeans barely follow, and he's still the most watched player on the planet's biggest stage. That's the career summed up better than any adjective could.
