Messi's 208th and last Argentina match: 3–0 over Benin, a penalty and two assists
Lionel Messi, 39, played his final match for Argentina on Tuesday night at the Monumental in Buenos Aires, a friendly against Benin that Argentina won 3–0 before about 85,000 people. In the 10th minute the referee stopped play so the crowd and both teams could give him a standing ovation. Nicolás Otamendi scored from a Messi set piece in the 48th minute, Messi set up Nico Paz, and he scored the third himself from the penalty spot, his 126th international goal. He finishes with 208 appearances, 126 goals and about 70 assists over 21 years, with the 2022 World Cup and two Copa América titles. Teammates from Qatar joined the farewell.
A sports story on a news front page because the world's newspapers all ran the same photograph Wednesday morning. Eighty-five thousand people gathering to send off one person is, on its own terms, the day's largest shared event.
None, unless you were there. Though the way a country chose to say goodbye is worth a minute.
The number that will outlast the goals is ten: the minute the game stopped so a stadium could applaud. Nobody planned it. That is what the pictures are of.
DailyDrop U.S. No. 3 · October 7, 2026