The 2026 World Cup will mark Argentinian phenom Lionel Messi’s sixth go at the World Cup and the first since he and his squad won in 2022 against France, when he averaged a goal a game. His rookie season was exactly 20 years ago, at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, after going professional in 2004 when he joined FC Barcelona. He’s 38 now, and no one was sure he’d play.
Messi is currently competing at a high level on his club team, Inter Miami CF, where he’s been since 2023, when he left Paris Saint-Germain FC after two years. Still, we didn’t know whether or not he’d want to come back to World Cup play after 2022’s triumph. But after showing up in an Adidas campaign just weeks before the start of the tourney, he confirmed his participation, eliciting a sigh of relief for fans everywhere—in Argentina especially.
