Lionel Messi will play his 34th World Cup match in Sunday's final, with questions swirling over whether the Argentina captain is seeing his last tournament game.
Lionel Messi is on the edge of more World Cup history as Argentina prepare for Sunday’s final, with the Argentina captain set to make his 34th appearance in the tournament. The big question now is whether the World Cup final will be his last match on the sport’s biggest stage.
Argentina are trying to become only the third side to win back-to-back World Cups, following Italy in 1934 and 1938 and Brazil in 1958 and 1962. To do it, Lionel Scaloni’s team will likely need Messi at his best once again. A win would also make Messi the first captain ever to lift the World Cup trophy twice.
Messi’s latest run has been a reminder of how much he still brings. In this World Cup, he has scored eight goals in seven games and sits two behind Kylian Mbappe in the race to finish as the tournament’s top scorer. He also has 12 World Cup assists, including 10 in knockout matches, which is more than any other player has managed on record. He did not score in Argentina’s semi-final against England, but his two assists helped fuel a late comeback win.
There is also the possibility that Messi is not done after all. BBC Sport noted that if he keeps going to 2030, he could become the oldest outfield player ever to appear at a World Cup at age 43, unless Cristiano Ronaldo also continues with Portugal. The 2030 tournament will be spread across six host nations, and at least one match is due to be played in Argentina. That could give Messi a chance to play on home soil at another World Cup.
Messi’s own comments after the 2022 final suggested he thought that tournament would be his farewell, but that did not turn out to be true. Since then, his World Cup form has stayed strong, and his late-career record at the tournament has only deepened his place in the game’s history. He is one of only two players, along with Ronaldo, to appear at six men’s World Cups, and he is also set to become only the second player after Cafu to play in three World Cup finals. Why it matters is simple: Messi may be nearing the end, but Argentina and football fans around the world are still watching for one more chapter.
