2022 Qatar World Cup will be my last World Cup, announces Messi
Lionel Messi has been in red-hot form this season, both for club and country. Argentina is currently on a 35-game unbeaten streak, stretching back to 2019, and ranked number 3 as per the latest FIFA ranking. Messi played a stellar role in helping the La Albiceleste (the blue and whites) lift the Copa America in 2021.
On Thursday, the legend announced that this year’s World Cup in Qatar will be his last World Cup. “This will be my last World Cup—for sure. The decision has been made,” he told the Argentine journalist Sebastián Vignolo during a conversation, which was tweeted out by the football pundit Fabrizio Romano.
Argentina has never won the World Cup with Messi in the team. But the Copa victory has surely given the team a huge impetus. The belief that the team has was also seen in the latest friendly against Venezuela (Argentina’s last on home soil before the World Cup), which it won 3-0, with Messi being the best player.
And the 35-year-old is desperate to win the World Cup in the last chance that he will get.
“We’re at a very good moment, with a very strong group, but anything can happen at a World Cup. … I don’t know if we are the favourites, but Argentina in itself is always a candidate for history, for what it means,” he told Vignolo.
Another Argentine, also among the best players of his generation, has already announced his retirement from international football after the World Cup: Angel di Maria. “After this World Cup it will be time,” he said in May after the match against Italy at Wenbley Stadium.
