{"id":260798,"date":"2026-09-02T14:52:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T14:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/02\/lionel-messi-officially-announces-his-international-retirement\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T14:52:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T14:52:01","slug":"lionel-messi-officially-announces-his-international-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/02\/lionel-messi-officially-announces-his-international-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi officially announces his international retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/players\/lionel_messi\/89216\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lionel Messi<\/a> officially announced his retirement from international <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">soccer<\/a> on Monday, putting an end to his career as Argentina&#8217;s top goal scorer and longest-serving representative for the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>His unforgettable run with Argentina will forever remain a huge milestone for the veteran as he bids farewell to the international sport.<\/p>\n<p>Argentina lost to Spain in the 2026 World Cup final, ending Messi&#8217;s sixth World Cup campaign and marking a pivotal moment for one of the most iconic players in the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Messi&#8217;s remarkable career started in 2006, when he made his first appearance with Argentina on the World Cup Stage and scored two goals. While he is ending his chapter with Argentina, he can now focus on his MLS career with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/articles\/ten_years_on_from_a_contentious_copa_america_messi_and_sanchez_meet_again_in_mls\/s1_13132_44229859\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Inter Miami<\/a>, for which he scored four goals and helped the team beat CF Montr\u00e9al, 7-1 on Saturday. He leads the league with 18 goals this season, and his goal is to help the team chase another trophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/plain\" class=\"optanon-category-C0004\">\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '1324276914788316');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/articles\/lionel_messi_officially_announces_his_international_retirement\/s1_13132_44241942\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi officially announced his retirement from international soccer on Monday, putting an end to his career as Argentina&#8217;s top goal scorer and longest-serving representative for the team.\u00a0 His unforgettable run with Argentina will forever remain a huge milestone for the veteran as he bids farewell to the international sport. Argentina lost to Spain in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6806],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-260798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gossip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}