👑 Messi, all set for The Last Dance! But not without controversy... 😨 | OneFootball

Lionel Messi’s last dance with Argentina will be at the Monumental, but not without controversy. Tomorrow night, more than 80,000 fans will say goodbye to Leo in his final match with the Selección, and tickets sold out in just two hours. A farewell coming more than 21 years after his debut against Hungary, in August 2005 in Budapest, which ended with a red card after just a handful of seconds.

The same opponent faced by Diego Armando Maradona on his debut with the Albiceleste in 1977. Two different stories, but a shared destiny: becoming the face of Argentine football.

🤔 The controversy over the choice of opponents

Messi’s farewell, however, comes at a delicate time for the federation. The AFA organized this international window by lining up opponents far below the level of the top national teams: first Bolivia, beaten 4-0, then Burkina Faso, crushed 7-0, and finally Benin, chosen as the sparring partner for the night at the Monumental. Scaloni himself admitted he would have preferred to face more competitive teams.

Even more unusual was the case of Burkina Faso, which took the field with an Under-23 lineup after the senior national team boycotted the match. But behind the choice of opponents there also appears to be an economic and organizational issue.

The Argentine federation, in fact, reportedly relied on a Colombian agency to find national teams willing to play without demanding significant compensation, keeping travel and accommodation costs to a minimum. The result is a series of friendlies with limited technical value, with Benin agreeing to take part for free, satisfied with the visibility tied to the night dedicated to Messi. A situation that has further fueled criticism of the AFA, already dealing with a complicated internal situation.

🔟 The night of the Diez

On the pitch, though, it will above all be Leo’s night. 125 goals in an Argentina shirt, four lost finals before the turning point, and then a string of triumphs that forever changed his relationship with the national team: the 2021 Copa America, the Finalissima against Italy, the 2022 World Cup, and another Copa America in 2024.

This summer, Messi also led the Albiceleste to the World Cup final, lost against Spain, before announcing his farewell after the death of his father, who had already been seriously weakened by illness.

Tomorrow, the Monumental will be all for him. Messi will bring to a close a story more than twenty years long, after rewriting virtually every record in the Selección and finally winning the trophies that had eluded him for years. Argentina is ready to say goodbye to its D10S.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.

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