When Lionel Messi plays his final match for Argentina against Benin on Tuesday, he will close an international career that began with his country struggling even to identify him and ended with him as the undisputed leader of its golden generation.
The farewell will take place at Buenos Aires’ Monumental stadium, concluding more than 20 years in the blue and white shirt and one of football’s most enduring relationships between a player and a nation.
Messi left for Barcelona as a teenager, where Spain attempted to convince him to represent them. In Argentina, however, the authorities were barely aware of the Rosario-born talent developing overseas.
At the 2003 Under-17 World Cup in Finland, Spain defeated Argentina 3-2 after extra time in the semi-finals. Argentine journalist and author Sergio Levinsky, who wrote Messi and Everything Else, said a young Cesc Fabregas – Messi’s team-mate at Barcelona’s La Masia academy – told Argentine officials afterwards: “You lost to us because we’ve got your best player at Barcelona and he’s a genius.”
Argentina youth coach Hugo Tocalli described a similar exchange at the Ole Summit last month. Spain’s head chef, he said, told him Argentina needed “a kid who plays in Barcelona” if they were to win the tournament.
Locating that player proved surprisingly difficult. Argentine Football Association (AFA) employee Omar Souto used a Rosario telephone directory to find the Messi family in Spain, but asked for “Leonardo”.
“His name isn’t Leonardo, it’s Lionel,” he was told, according to the documentary Messi: The Forgotten Tape.
The administrative confusion continued when the AFA faxed Barcelona to ask about a player named “Mecci”. Officials had used a double “c” because they thought the surname might be Italian, Levinsky said.
Messi made his first appearances for Argentina in two under-20 friendlies in 2004, but doubts remained. At the 2005 Under-20 World Cup in the Netherlands, he started on the bench as Argentina lost their opening match.
“There was strong resistance to calling up a kid who didn’t play in the country,” Levinsky said. “He had to fight against those early suspicions, against being considered a foreigner because he lived in Spain.”
He was later accused by some supporters of failing to reproduce his club form and labelled “pecho frio” – a player without heart or passion.
A 2011 World Cup qualifier against Colombia began to alter that view. Messi helped Argentina recover from a goal down in difficult conditions, despite being exhausted and vomiting.
“It was the first time fans saw him differently,” Levinsky said.
The relationship deepened after Messi briefly retired following Argentina’s penalty shootout defeat by Chile in the 2016 Copa America final. Supporters publicly urged him to return instead of blaming him for the losses.
Under Lionel Scaloni, Messi led Argentina to two Copa America titles and the 2022 World Cup. His outspoken captaincy prompted comparisons with Diego Maradona, but Levinsky said both players should be recognised on their own terms.
“It is Messi and Maradona,” he added. “They were both geniuses in different eras.”
“Messi was like suddenly finding out you have an 18-year-old son,” Levinsky said. “You have to start loving him without having known he existed. It was a love under construction.”
