Messi with Argentina.. 20 years of ups
and downs crowned with overwhelming glory
Veteran Argentine star Lionel Messi, Inter Miami striker, is armed with memories of 20 years with his country's national team before two new tests for the 2022 World Cup champions in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.
The Argentine
- national team will host its Venezuelan counterpart on September 5
- and four days later it will face Ecuador, at the conclusion of
- the South American qualifiers for the World Cup
which will be held next year in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Messi
captain of the Argentine national team, was on the list, noting that the World Cup title holder has already qualified for the 2026 World Cup since last March.
Earlier this week
the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain star celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first international match for Argentina when he came on as a substitute in a friendly match on August 17, 2005.
The FIFA
website indicated that since that date, Lionel Messi has lived a long journey of failures and fluctuations, which he concluded with very notable successes.
FIFA explained that
a month before Messi's start with his country's national team
he contributed to Argentina winning the U-20 World Cup in the Netherlands
where he scored 6 goals, including one in the final match that ended with a 2-1 victory over Nigeria, and won the top scorer and best player awards.
He explained
- "But Messi's start with the first team was shocking
- as he received a red card only 47 seconds after participating
He added that Messi needed only six matches to score his first goal
for Argentina, during a friendly win against Croatia in March 2006.
Messi
participated in five World Cups, starting with Germany 2006, South Africa 2010, Brazil 2014, Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022.
The "flea"
- wore the famous shirt (10) after Juan Roman Riquelme retired in 2009
- and appeared in it for the first time while the late legend
- Diego Maradona was in charge of training "tango dancers".
Leo overcame violent setbacks with the Tango Dancers in his early years, including losing 3-0 to Brazil in the 2007 Copa America final, and falling 4-0 to Germany in the round of 16 of the 2010 World Cup.
Messi wore the captain's armband
for Argentina for the first time during the 2-0 victory over Greece in the 2010 World Cup, after which he lived a violent journey of successive shocks by losing three consecutive finals to Germany in the 2014 World Cup final and to Chile in the Copa America final in 2015 and 2016.
In the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Messi experienced the shock of
an early exit with a 3-4 loss to France in the round of 16.
But in the last four years
Messi healed all the wounds of the past, and won three titles, the first of which was the 2021 Copa America by defeating Brazil, the tournament organizer, in the final match, and a year later the Argentine captain achieved his biggest dream of
winning the 2022 World Cup after a marathon match against France
which was decided on penalties after a 3-3 draw in regular and extra time.
Many imagined that
the Argentine star would retire after this achievement, but he continued his career until winning the Copa America title last year 2024, hoping to achieve new achievements :
in his sixth consecutive participation in the World Cup a year later.