Messi's Last Argentina Match: 3-0 vs Benin, Minute by Minute

Gracias, Leo: Messi's Last Argentina Match, Minute by Minute

Oct 7, 2026 · ly44

Argentina · Farewell

Gracias, Leo: Messi's Last Argentina Match, Minute by Minute

A penalty, two assists and a 3–0 win over Benin at a sold-out Estadio Monumental. The night Lionel Messi closed 21 years and 208 caps in the blue and white — and the hour after it.

Published 7 October 2026 · Estadio Monumental, Buenos Aires

Lionel Messi's final Argentina match ended the way almost none of the important ones had. Not with a defeat to be explained away, not with a tournament exit and a walk down a tunnel, but with a 3–0 win in front of 85,000 people, a goal from the penalty spot, two assists, and a stadium that spent most of the second half singing his name. He is 39. He finished on 208 caps. He will not wear the shirt again.

The Argentine Football Association named the day “Gracias, Leo” and built a carnival around it — a programme that opened at midday at the university campus, ran through the pre-match show at the Monumental from 17:30, and ended with drones and fireworks over the pitch close to 23:00. The football, unusually for a night like this, held up its end. Argentina were goalless at half-time, scored three times in twenty-three minutes after the break, and Messi was involved in every one of them.

Figures in this piece were checked against the post-match reports of the Associated Press, Reuters and the AFA. Career totals are given as they stood after the Benin match: 208 caps and 126 goals. Assist totals for Messi's Argentina career differ by source, so this article counts only the two he supplied on the night.

The match at a glance

Result	Argentina 3–0 Benin
Competition	International friendly
Venue	Estadio Monumental, Buenos Aires
Attendance	85,000 — sold out in 90 minutes
Half-time	0–0
Goals	Otamendi 48’, Paz 61’, Messi 71’ (pen)
Messi	90 minutes · 1 goal · 2 assists · 208th cap
The window	4–0 Bolivia · 7–0 Burkina Faso · 3–0 Benin

Ninety minutes, one last time

The AFA treated 6 October as a day-long event rather than a match, and the schedule ran from noon to near midnight. Here is how it actually went.

Time	What happened
12:00	The Gracias, Leo carnival opens at the university campus in Buenos Aires.
Before	Adidas changes its profile picture to the “No. 10 · Gracias” mark used on the pitch shirt. Messi is awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Buenos Aires.
17:30	The pre-match show begins at the Monumental. The stadium is already close to four-fifths full two hours before kick-off.
18:30	The main stage programme starts at the carnival, hosted by the former Argentina goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea.
Anthem	The national anthem is sung by a veteran of the 1982 Falklands War. Messi, standing with his three sons, is visibly emotional; Emiliano Martínez puts an arm around him.
20:00	Kick-off. Messi captains Argentina for the 208th and final time.
10’	Play stops. The whole ground stands to applaud; Benin’s players queue to shake his hand; fireworks go up behind the stand. Messi raises a hand back.
45’	Half-time, 0–0. Argentina have dominated the ball but Benin have had the better of the counter-attacks.
48’	Otamendi heads in Messi’s corner. 1–0.
59’	Nico Paz comes on.
61’	Paz curls in Messi’s pass from outside the box. 2–0.
68’	Penalty to Argentina after a late tackle on right-back Agustín Giay.
71’	Messi scores it, left-footed, into the roof of the net. 3–0. His 126th Argentina goal.
90’+	Full-time. Fireworks, then a drone show above the pitch. Messi takes the microphone and thanks the crowd.
23:00	The last of the ceremony ends.

The match also completed Argentina’s window without conceding: 4–0 against Bolivia in Córdoba, 7–0 against Burkina Faso at the Monumental, and this one. Messi played only the last of the three.

The three goals

Argentina did not score until the 48th minute, and then scored three times in twenty-three. Messi had a hand in all of them — the corner, the pass and the penalty.

48’Otamendi · header

The corner that broke it open

Argentina had been the better side all evening without finding a way through, and the opening goal came from the least complicated route available. Messi took a corner from the left, the ball arrived at the near post at head height, and Nicolás Otamendi threw himself at it. The centre-back is 38 and has spent more of his career defending set pieces than attacking them. He finished it like a striker, and then stood still for a moment with his arms out.

61’Nico Paz · left foot

The pass and the answer to it

Paz had been on the pitch for two minutes. Messi found him between the lines, roughly twenty-five yards out, and Paz took a touch out of his feet before curling the ball left-footed around the far post. The obvious reading of it — the No. 10 assisting the No. 10 shirt — was hard to miss, and the stadium made sure nobody missed it.

71’Messi · penalty

His own

Giay was caught late in the box on 68 minutes and Messi took the ball without any discussion. He put it high into the net, left-footed, and turned away before it had properly settled. It was his 126th goal for Argentina and the last one he will score for them. He also hit a free kick over the bar in the closing minutes, from the edge of the area, which is a reasonably fitting full stop.

Messi with both arms raised as he leaves the pitch at the Estadio Monumental — Messi leaves the pitch after his 208th and final Argentina appearance. He finished the night with a goal, two assists and the match ball.

The shirt he wore, and the two ways to get it

The shirt was a one-off: a sky-blue base with a single broad white stripe instead of Argentina’s usual run of bands, rays from the Sun of May drawn across the chest and back, gold on every edge, and a golden MESSI 10 with a goat’s-horn motif worked into the print. It was made for one match and worn once. The store’s version keeps the pattern and comes in men’s, women’s and youth fits — with the No. 10 printed, or with a blank back.

With MESSI 10 on the back

Three fits · gold number, gold name

Men's

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$95.54$48.97

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Youth

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With a blank back

The same shirt, no name and no number

2026 Argentina Messi Farewell Blank Shirt – Special Edition (Men)

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2026 Argentina Messi Farewell Blank Shirt – Special Edition (Women)

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The book closes: 208 and 126

The numbers Messi leaves behind are not records he shares with anyone.

208 caps and 126 goals. Both are Argentina records, and the gap to whoever is next is wide enough that neither is likely to move for a long time.
21 of those goals came at World Cup tournaments, across six of them. He made 34 World Cup appearances in total.
Three World Cup finals. Beaten by Germany in 2014, champion in 2022, beaten by Spain in 2026 — the last of them in extra time, and the reason this farewell happened when it did.
Four major senior titles: the Copa América in 2021 and 2024, the 2022 Finalissima, and the 2022 World Cup. Before 2021, Argentina had not won a senior trophy for 28 years.
A debut on 17 August 2005 against Hungary, aged 18. It lasted about ninety seconds and ended in a red card. Twenty-one years separate that night from this one.
He is 39. He has retired from international football only — he still plays for Inter Miami in MLS.

Why this night happened now

Messi announced he was leaving the Argentina team on 31 August, six weeks after the 2026 World Cup final. Argentina lost that match 1–0 to Spain in extra time, having come through a tournament in which Messi scored eight goals and made four assists at the age of 39 — enough to take the silver ball and the silver boot.

He had already written the statement by 21 July, two days after the final. What changed between that and the announcement was the AFA’s case for one more match. Claudio Tapia, the association’s president, asked him to come back for a single home friendly so that Argentina could say goodbye in a full stadium rather than in the aftermath of a defeat abroad. Messi agreed to the Benin date and to nothing else: he was not in the squad for the Bolivia or Burkina Faso matches.

He was direct about what it meant, speaking into a microphone on the pitch afterwards. He said it had been a source of pride to wear the shirt for over twenty years, that he had never stopped giving everything for it, and that he would happily keep coming back forever — that playing for Argentina is the best thing that can happen to a player. Then he told the crowd that he was moving to their side of the fence: from now on he would be one of the people supporting whoever comes next.

A drone show above the Estadio Monumental after the final whistle — A drone show over the Monumental after full time, one of several tributes staged through the evening.

How the night was staged

The shirt on the pitch. A giant Argentina shirt was laid out before kick-off carrying Messi’s No. 10 — and, instead of his name, a single word: Gracias.
Rosario, 300 km away. In Messi’s home city, a 30-metre replica shirt was hung beneath the flag monument, then flown over the city by helicopter.
An honorary doctorate. Hours before kick-off, the University of Buenos Aires awarded Messi the degree at the national team’s training complex in Ezeiza.
The anthem. The AFA invited a veteran of the 1982 Falklands War to sing it — a deliberate choice, and one that visibly affected Messi.
The 78 and 86 squads. Players from Argentina’s earlier World Cup-winning sides, and the whole 2022 group with their families, were invited.
Small details. Emiliano Martínez had an M cut into his hair. Ronaldinho and Neymar both posted tributes. Adidas changed its profile picture to the same No. 10 · Gracias mark.

A giant Argentina replica shirt laid out in a city square in Rosario — Rosario, Messi’s home city: a 30-metre replica shirt displayed under the flag monument and later flown overhead.

What Argentina look like without him

The obvious question after a night like this is what replaces it, and the honest answer is: not much, for a while. Messi’s value to the national team was never only on the pitch. Argentina’s friendlies sold out because he was in them; the Bolivia match in Córdoba, which he sat out, was played in front of a half-empty ground. The AFA’s commercial projections now have to be built without their single biggest draw, and the likeliest consequence is more matches staged abroad — which is precisely the opposite of what a team needs when it is trying to keep a domestic audience attached to a new generation.

On the football side the picture is calmer. Lionel Scaloni confirmed after the match that he will extend his contract and continue, and he said plainly that he intends to keep the identity the team built with Messi rather than start again. He also has an obvious inheritor for the No. 10 role in Nico Paz, who came on in the 59th minute and scored two minutes later. Franco Mastantuono is the other young name in the picture; Julián Álvarez and Enzo Fernández are already in their prime.

What no system can replace is the attention. Argentina’s global reach over the past decade has been Messi’s reach, and the drop will show up first in crowds, then in television numbers, then in the size of the sponsorship deals the AFA can negotiate. The next Copa América is the first real marker. The team does not have to be worse to feel smaller.

FAQ

What was the result of Messi's final Argentina match?: Argentina beat Benin 3–0 at the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires on 6 October 2026. Nicolás Otamendi opened the scoring in the 48th minute, Nico Paz made it two in the 61st, and Messi scored a penalty on 71 minutes.
Did Messi score in his last game for Argentina?: Yes — a left-footed penalty in the 71st minute, his 126th and final international goal. He also provided both assists, for Otamendi and Paz, so he was directly involved in all three goals.
How many caps and goals did Messi finish with?: 208 caps and 126 goals, both Argentina records. He also finished with more assists than any other player in the country’s history.
Why was the match stopped in the 10th minute?: The referee paused play so the crowd could applaud Messi, and so Benin’s players could shake his hand. Similar tributes took place before kick-off and again after the final whistle.
Is Messi retiring from football entirely?: No. He has retired from international football only. He remains a player at Inter Miami in MLS and continues his club career there.
Why did Messi retire from Argentina now?: He announced the decision on 31 August 2026, six weeks after Argentina’s 1–0 defeat to Spain in the 2026 World Cup final. He had written the statement two days after that final; the AFA then persuaded him to play one last home friendly so that Argentina could hold a proper farewell.
Will Messi play at the 2030 World Cup?: He has not ruled anything out publicly, but he is 39 and has stepped away from the national team. Argentina’s planning for the next cycle is built around Nico Paz, Franco Mastantuono, Julián Álvarez and Enzo Fernández.
Where can I buy the Argentina farewell shirt?: The farewell edition is available in the store in men’s, women’s and youth fits, with MESSI 10 printed on the back or with a blank back. Every card in this article links to its product page.

You can return and get a refund within 30 days if you are not satisfied.

The match at a glance

Ninety minutes, one last time

The three goals

The corner that broke it open

The pass and the answer to it

His own

The shirt he wore, and the two ways to get it

With MESSI 10 on the back

With a blank back

Shop by fit

The book closes: 208 and 126

Why this night happened now

How the night was staged

What Argentina look like without him

FAQ

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