Messi to Play Final Argentina Match Against Benin at Monumental

Lionel Messi plays his final Argentina match against Benin before more than 80,000 fans, as questions mount over the opponents the AFA assembled for his farewell.

Lionel Messi will make his final appearance for Argentina on Tuesday, when the national team hosts Benin at the Monumental stadium. The send-off is expected to draw more than 80,000 spectators, and tickets for the occasion sold out within two hours.

The farewell arrives more than 21 years after Messi's senior debut against Hungary in Budapest in August 2005, an introduction that ended with a red card moments after he stepped onto the field. Hungary was also the opponent when Diego Armando Maradona earned his first Argentina cap in 1977. The two careers began against the same rival and, in different eras, turned each player into the emblem of Argentine football in his generation.

Messi leaves with 125 goals in an Argentina shirt. Defeats in four finals marked the opening stretch of his international story before a run of trophies reshaped it: the 2021 Copa América, the Finalissima against Italy, the 2022 World Cup and another Copa América in 2024. That sequence permanently changed his relationship with the national team.

He was back on the biggest stage again this summer, leading Argentina to the World Cup final, where the team lost to Spain. Messi announced his retirement from the national team afterward, a decision that followed the death of his father, who had been left seriously weakened by illness before his passing.

Away from the field, the buildup has been clouded by criticism of the Argentine Football Association over the opponents it assembled for this international window. Argentina opened with a 4-0 win over Bolivia and a 7-0 rout of Burkina Faso, with Benin completing the window as the opponent picked for the farewell night. Coach Lionel Scaloni has publicly acknowledged that he would have preferred stronger opposition.

The Burkina Faso fixture carried its own unusual twist. After that country's senior national team boycotted the match, an Under-23 side took the field in its place.

Reports point to an economic rationale behind the schedule. The AFA is said to have relied on a Colombian agency to find national teams that would play for modest or no compensation, allowing travel and lodging expenses to be held down. Benin reportedly accepted no fee, drawn by the exposure attached to an evening built around Messi. The result, according to critics, is a set of friendlies with little competitive value, which has deepened scrutiny of a federation already facing internal troubles.

For all the debate over the opponent, the evening belongs to Messi. He closes an international story of more than two decades, having broken nearly every major mark in the national team's record books and having finally secured the titles that stayed out of reach for so long.

Argentina's farewell match against Benin is scheduled for Tuesday, October 6 at 7:00 PM EDT at Estadio Más Monumental.