I think the most incredible thing about Messi’s career, especially his journey with the national team, is that you could gather a hundred thousand scriptwriters in a room and still struggle to come up with a story better than the one he has lived.
If someone had told me in 2019 that Messi would one day walk away from international football having won everything he has won, having experienced the kind of redemption and joy he has experienced, I would have called them a liar and a thief. It would have sounded too perfect to be true.
And yet, somehow, football wrote it.
Football has been extraordinarily kind to him. It gave him the highest of highs after putting him through some of its deepest heartbreaks. It allowed him to experience everything the game could possibly offer, and he did it while remaining an incredible human being and an example for generations that will come after him.
But today hurts.
Because a part of my football-loving self dies with this chapter.
This is the last top-flight level at which I still get to watch him, and after today, even that is gone. Maybe he does another two or three years in MLS, but this feels like the dress rehearsal for the day when the curtain finally comes down.
And perhaps that is what makes today so emotional. We have spent so many years watching Messi that it is difficult to imagine football without the possibility of him being there. There was always another game. Another tournament. Another impossible goal. Another moment when he would make something look effortless that the rest of us could barely comprehend.
Now, there is an ending.
His national-team career ends today, and I don’t think any fan could have asked for a better story. Not a better spell. Not a greater legacy. Not a more beautiful ending.
Football has carried me through different seasons of my life, and Messi has been part of so many of them. I didn’t just watch his career; in some strange way, I grew with it. His goals, his triumphs, his heartbreaks, his celebrations, they became part of the soundtrack of my own life.
And perhaps that is why saying goodbye feels bigger than saying goodbye to a footballer.
It feels like saying goodbye to a piece of my childhood. To a version of myself that could sit down and watch Messi play and simply marvel at the fact that someone like this existed.
Thank you, Leo.
For the goals.
For the magic.
For the heartbreaks.
For the joy.
For making the impossible look ordinary.
For giving us memories that will outlive the career that created them.
Football will go on. It always does.
But it will never quite feel the same.
Gracias, Leo.
Thank you for everything.
Thank you for the memories.
The way Messi’s career has gone is pure Hollywood. His career is ending the exact way it started.
He was the 23 year old that was already getting GOAT shouts and now he is the 36 year old that is winning his 8th Ballon D’or.
The greatest athlete earth has seen!