{"id":1035437,"date":"2026-08-31T19:11:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T19:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1035437\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T19:11:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T19:11:22","slug":"lionel-messi-retires-from-argentina-national-team-after-six-world-cup-appearances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1035437\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi retires from Argentina national team after six World Cup appearances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"anchor-bfab7c\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cI leave with the peace of mind and pride of having given you \u2014together with my teammates \u2014 moments we\u2019d only dreamed of,\u201d Messi wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/leomessi\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">on social media<\/a>, in a translation from Spanish. \u201cIt was incredible to have lived through it all with you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8281d3\" class=\"body-graf\">Messi posted that he wrote the announcement of his retirement two days after Argentina\u2019s loss to Spain in July\u2019s World Cup final, and after a pause that included mourning the death of his father, \u201cI\u2019m more convinced than ever\u201d it was time to take off Argentina\u2019s famed blue-and-white-striped kit. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-f18a28\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cIt was a decision that hurt \u2014 and still hurts \u2014 deep in the soul, but I understand that it\u2019s time,\u201d Messi wrote. \u201cI swear to you that I always gave it my all \u2014 not just in recent years, but even before we won everything \u2014 and I always fought hard and gave everything I had for this jersey, to bring you joy and make you proud to be Argentine through soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-92eac4\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThere\u2019s not much time left, and chapters are coming to a close \u2014and this is one that hurts me deeply. I love, have loved, and will always love being on the national team. I\u2019ve given it my all; I have nothing left to give, and besides, there are some truly great young players coming up who deserve their spot,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-bc5a6a\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThank you for all the love over these 20 years. I\u2019m going to miss hearing from you all so much from the sidelines. Now I\u2019ll be just one of you, always cheering and supporting from the sidelines (through the good times and the bad \u2014 especially the bad),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI leave with the peace of mind and pride of having given you \u2014together with my teammates \u2014&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1035438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":["post-1035437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117191710376830906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1035438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}