Lionel Messi will play his last match for Argentina on Tuesday, October 6, against Benin at River Plate's Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires, with kickoff at 8 p.m.
The friendly against Benin, a West African side, closes a three-match FIFA window and is the only one Messi will play. Argentina beat Bolivia 4-0 in Córdoba on September 30 and Burkina Faso 7-0 at the Monumental on Saturday, both without him. Messi, 39, announced his retirement from the national team on August 31, after Argentina lost the World Cup final to Spain. He landed in Rosario on Friday with his family and is due to join the squad at its Ezeiza training base before Tuesday.
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has invited the players who won the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, with their families, to the match, and has planned a show before kickoff. "We want to invite all the world champions who took part in the Qatar World Cup to accompany him, with their families, in an unforgettable match, the last tango of the best player in the world," AFA president Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia said in a video. Argentina will wear a jersey made for the occasion and used only once.
The University of Buenos Aires (UBA) will also honor him on the pitch. Its governing council voted unanimously on September 30 to name Messi a Doctor Honoris Causa, the university's highest honorary title, and will present it on Tuesday before the match.
Tickets sold out in under two hours when sales opened on September 24 through the Deportick platform, with a limit of four per account. Adult prices ran from 90,000 pesos (about US$60) for standing room to 480,000 pesos (about US$315) for the best seats. The same price scale applied to Saturday's match against Burkina Faso, in which Messi did not play.
The Monumental will be full for the first time this window, after a FIFA sanction on AFA limited the first two friendlies to half capacity. "I imagine that if there were five Monumentals, they would all have filled," coach Lionel Scaloni said after the Burkina Faso match. "People have written to me from everywhere to see if I could get them a ticket." Scaloni said he will "be a spectator" on Tuesday: "It's going to be his day, with his teammates."