Veteran star Lionel Messi appeared in the Argentina national football team shirt, inside the green rectangle, for the last time.
Messi, widely considered the greatest player in history, scored his final appearance for the Argentina national team in an influential match that ended with his team's 3-0 victory over its guest, Benin, yesterday evening, Tuesday local time, and Wednesday morning GMT, thus putting an end to a career that spanned 21 years in the service of his country.
In the following lines, we shed light on Messi's most prominent numbers during his career with the Argentina national team.
Messi won the World Cup once, in the Qatar World Cup in 2022, and he also reached the final on two other occasions, in 2014 and 2026, where he lost to Germany and Spain, respectively.
The number of World Cup championships in which Messi participated (2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022, and 2026), a record he shares with his arch rival, Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi scored 21 goals during his participation in these six World Cup tournaments, as he ranks second on the list of all-time World Cup scorers, behind French striker Kylian Mbappe, who scored 22 goals despite participating in only three editions of the tournament.
Messi was 39 years old when he announced his retirement from international football on August 31, 21 years after his first appearance with the Argentina national team in a friendly match against Hungary in August 2005, a match in which he lasted only one minute before he was expelled for hitting one of the opposing team’s players with his elbow.
Messi scored 126 international goals, which is equivalent to more than twice the number of goals scored by any other Argentine player, as the previous record was held by Gabriel Batistuta, who scored 54 goals in 78 matches he played between 1991 and 2002.
Despite this, Messi is ranked second behind Cristiano Ronaldo (146 goals) on the list of all-time top scorers in international men's football.
The total number of international matches played by Messi is a record for the Argentine national team, although not an absolute record in international men's football.
Once again, Messi ranks second on the list behind Ronaldo (leader), who played 234 matches with the Portuguese national team.
American star Coco Gauff bid farewell to the women's singles competition at the China Open Tennis Championship, after losing to Belgian Elise Mertens, today, Wednesday, in the fourth round of the competition currently being held in the capital, Beijing.
Gauff lost to Mertens, whom she had beaten in all of their previous five matches, after receiving what she described as a “huge and crazy” amount of racist comments on social media, following a controversial point in the previous round of the competition.
Mertens, ranked 19th in the world, defeated Gauff, ranked fourth, 6-3, 6-3, to qualify for the quarter-finals of the competition.
In a match that took place the day before yesterday, Monday, against Chinese player Sun Xinran, Gauff stopped the exchange of balls after the electronic billboards surrounding the court began flashing during a decisive point late in the first set of the match.
Sun appeared to be on its way to settling the point when Gauff stopped playing, and the chair referee then ordered the point to be replayed.
Gough, a black-skinned player, said in her response, on her account on the “X” platform: “Hello everyone, you can hate me or disagree with me about what happened without resorting to racism. The amount of racist comments and private messages I have received, in the last few hours, is overwhelming and insane. Finally, I am neither a cheat nor a thief.
During her match against Mertens, Gauff lost her serve 4 times.
With this victory, Mertens reached the quarter-finals for the first time in the 1,000-point tournaments, which is the category that immediately follows the four major “Grand Slam” competitions, in 5 years.
Mertens spoke about Gauff after the match, saying: “She is an amazing player, of course, and I knew it would be a very difficult match, but I had strong motivation. Tomorrow is the birthday of my coach and friend, so I dedicate this victory to him and all the work we do together.”
Mertens was able to improve her record against players ranked in the top ten this year, to 3 victories, compared to 3 defeats, as she previously defeated Italian Yasmine Paolini in the Italian Open, and the current top seed, Kazakh Elena Rybakina, in the third round of the English Open, Wimbledon, where she also reached the quarter-finals at the time.
Mertens set up a match in the quarter-finals of the tournament with Polish Iga Szwiłtek, the six-time Grand Slam champion, who defeated rising American Ivan Jovic (18 years old) earlier today, in two clean sets, in the fourth round of the competition.
Australian Alex de Minaur, ranked ninth in the world, said that he will go to Shanghai to undergo medical examinations, after the injury he suffered in the connective muscle that forced him to withdraw from the final of the China Open tennis championship in Beijing, yesterday, Tuesday.
The 27-year-old player was giving a strong performance against Serbian Novak Djokovic in a close final, before he felt muscle pain that prompted him to withdraw while trailing 7-6 and 1-0 in the second set, giving his rival his seventh title in the Chinese capital.
De Minaur told reporters: “I was feeling in excellent condition, then I felt something in the final stages of the first set, and it started to get gradually worse.”
He added: “I feel pain in the connective muscle, but I do not know the nature of the injury yet. “I will undergo further tests and x-rays, and I intend to go to Shanghai to have them done.”
De Minaur knows well the bitterness of injuries, as in 2024 he was forced to withdraw from the quarter-final match at Wimbledon against Djokovic due to a groin injury. The injury also prevented him from competing in the singles at the Paris Olympics, before he returned to action in the US Open seven weeks later.
The Australian was scheduled to participate in the Shanghai Masters Championship, which begins today, Wednesday, after reaching the quarter-finals last year.
If the results of the tests are reassuring, he will still have strong hope of grabbing one of the qualifying seats in the final tournament of the men's tennis season, especially after one of the available positions became vacant following Jannik Sinner's announcement that his season is over and that he will not compete in any other tournaments this year.
Despite the disappointing end in Beijing, De Minaur seemed satisfied with the level he presented during the tournament, after he continued his strong performances and reached the final match.
He said: “Everything was positive, except for the end, of course.”
He added: “I performed very well, and played some of my best points in the tournament. “I felt very comfortable and confident on the field.”
