Article by Daniel Scorpie – Published Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 2:13 p.m. / Updated Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 2:18 p.m.
Lionel Messi (38 years old) can surpass 200 selections for the Argentine national team if he participates in the sixth World Championship. The global finals tournament record holder (26) admitted he will only be in North America if he feels in top form. “I don't want to be a burden for the national team!” declared the captain of the world champion.
Messi has the opportunity to break the record of Lothar Matthaus and become the first footballer in history to participate in six editions of the World Championship, after the tournaments of 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022, the last one with the title won in Qatar. A performance that Cristiano Ronaldo, the captain of the Portuguese national team, can achieve, also in the summer.
Messi can play in the 6th World Cup and exceed 30 matches!
After making his debut two decades ago, Leo Messi has reached 195 caps and 114 goals, including six in final tournaments. The captain is still in doubt if he will go to the competition hosted by USA, Mexico and Canada between June 11 and July 19, 2026.
The great Lionel Messi (38 years old) was moved to tears in the match Argentina – Venezuela, score 3-0, the last game he played for the national team in his native country.
I'm back in a place that I miss with all my heart. A place where I was enormously happy, where you made me feel a thousand times the happiest person in the world. I hope that one day I can come back, and not just say goodbye as a player, as I never got to…
Lionel Messiupon returning to “Camp Nou”
“I have emotions when I think about the World Cup next year. But I don't want to be a burden for the national team. I will play under one condition: to feel in the best shape”, Messi confessed in an interview published by the Catalan newspaper Sport.
🚨🏆 Messi: “I'm excited for the World Cup. But I don't want to be a burden, I want to feel good physically, be sure that I can help and contribute things to the group”.
“I will see day to day if I really feel good physically to be like I would like to be able to participate”. pic.twitter.com/Tb7t0AX4ka
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) November 11, 2025
Lionel Messi: “There are many things, not only in the club but also in the city, that make me want to stay at Barcelona”
This year, Messi signed a 3-year extension with the US team. At the end of the adventure in Miami, the Argentine will return to live in Barcelona, as he himself announced.
“The affection of the fans is spectacular. I feel nostalgic. I am grateful to be part of this club, to have arrived here when I was young and to have grown up and spent my whole life in Barcelona.
Lionel Messi wants to live in Barcelona after retirement from football / Instagram photo @LionelMessi
I am grateful to God for taking me to that place when I was a child and also for the birth of my children in this city and for the whole club and the city in general, because I got there when I was little, grew up and spent my whole life there.
There are many things, not only in the club, but also in the city, that make me want to stay in Barcelona”, revealed the star of Inter Miami in the same interview in the newspaper Sport.
