Billionaire Lionel Messi says goodbye to Argentina after 208 games, 126 goals and a World Cup

Argentine billionaire Lionel Messi played his final game for Argentina on Tuesday night, scoring once and setting up two more in a 3-0 friendly victory over Benin in front of 85,000 people at the Estadio Monumental, and closing an international career that began in 2005 and peaked with the 2022 World Cup.

Messi, 39, converted a penalty in the 71st minute for his 126th international goal, the second-highest total in men’s soccer history behind Cristiano Ronaldo’s 146 for Portugal. It was his 208th appearance, again second only to Ronaldo.

Tickets for the match sold out in 90 minutes. Before kickoff a giant Argentina shirt bearing his number 10 and the word “Gracias” was unfurled on the pitch, and a drone display of his jersey closed the night.

He addressed the crowd afterward, visibly emotional and referring to the recent death of his father, Jorge, who managed his career from the start. Wearing the shirt for more than 20 years had been “a huge pride,” he said, and he wished he could keep doing it for the rest of his life.

The opponent was an African side making its own history by being there. Benin, ranked outside the world’s top 80 and never a World Cup qualifier, was chosen for a farewell that could have gone to any federation in the world, and its players lined up for photographs with Messi before the game. The result was never in doubt; the occasion was the point.

President Javier Milei posted twice on X. Before the game: “Thank you very much, Lionel Messi, for all the magic you have given us on and off the field, showing the world that with hard work it is possible to achieve even the impossible. Messi is impossible...!!!” After it: “The greatest of all time, by far.”

The retirement from international football does not touch the business. Forbes added Messi to its billionaires list in June, at about $1.1 billion, after he earned $70 million on the field for Inter Miami last season and roughly $70 million more from endorsements with Adidas, Apple and others.

The valuation rests on two decades of accumulated earnings and on an option to take an equity stake in Inter Miami when he retires from club football, a right he negotiated when he joined Major League Soccer in 2023. He is the fourth athlete to reach ten figures, after Ronaldo, Tiger Woods and LeBron James, and the second footballer.

That makes Tuesday a bookend rather than an exit. Messi continues at Inter Miami, where his contract runs through the 2028 season, and the Inter Miami option is worth more the longer he plays. The MLS club’s valuation has roughly tripled since his arrival, and the stake he can buy is priced on terms set before that rise.

What ended in Buenos Aires was the part of his career that paid least and mattered most to Argentines: 208 games, four World Cups, the 2021 Copa América that broke a 28-year drought, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar that settled the Ronaldo argument for most of the people in the stadium, and a last penalty against a team from Cotonou. The shirt on the pitch said thank you. The crowd said it back.