Lionel Messi retires from international soccer: Total stats, goals, and caps with Argentina

Lionel Messi has retired from international soccer, closing a 21-year career with Argentina that rewrote the record books. The 39-year-old announced his decision on August 31, weeks after Argentina lost the World Cup final to Spain, and he will play hisfarewell matchon Tuesday, October 6, against Benin at the Monumental in Buenos Aires.

Heading into it, he has207 caps, 125 goalsand68 assists, making himthe most-capped playerandthe all-time leading scorerin the history of the national team. Messi made his senior debut on August 17, 2005, in a friendly against Hungary in Budapest, where, incredibly, he was sent off less than a minute after coming on as a substitute.

Seven months later, on March 1, 2006, he scored his first goal for Argentina against Croatia, and he kept scoring for the next two decades. His125 goalscame in54 friendlies, 36 South American World Cup qualifiers, 21 World Cup matchesand14 Copa América games, an average of0.60 per game.

He passed Gabriel Batistuta as Argentina's top scorer during the 2016 Copa América Centenario, and his total is now more than twice Batistuta's 56. Only Cristiano Ronaldo, with146for Portugal, has scored more international goals.

Tweet placeholder Six World Cups and a record book of his own Messi'ssix World Cups, from Germany 2006 to this summer's tournament in North America, produced some of the biggest numbers the competition has seen. He holds the records formatches played(34),wins(23) andassists(12), and his21 goalsranksecond all-time, behind only Kylian Mbappé's 22.

see also Lionel Messi's Argentina retirement: How his stats compare to Diego Maradona He is also the only player to win the Golden Ball twice, in 2014 and 2022, and in Qatar he became the first to score in the group stage, round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and final of the same World Cup. Even in his last tournament, at 39, he scored eight goals with four assists and became the oldest Argentine to score at a World Cup.

His mark at the Copa América is just as unusual, with39 matches across seven editions, the most in the history of the tournament, and 14 goals, which leave him tied forfifthon theall-time scoring list. In South American qualifying, his36 goalsin 72 matches arethe most everscored in that competition.

The wait that ended at the Maracana For years, the one thing missing from Messi's résumé was a senior title with Argentina. He lost finals at the Copa América in2007,2015and2016, and at the2014 World Cup.

After the 2016 loss to Chile, he briefly retired, saying the national team was not for him after losing two consecutive finals. However, he returned that same year to keep fighting with Argentina and try to win a title.