Perhaps somewhere, in some dusty journal that’s surely been lost in Rosario, Lionel Messi made clear his destiny: that if he were to one day represent Argentina, his national team career must end in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
A decade and two months before the playmaker posted his hand-written retirement from international football, Messi made his first attempt to leave La Albiceleste. They had just lost the Copa América Centenario – a special edition of the South American championship held in the United States for the tournament’s 100th anniversary – in excruciating fashion, with Messi having missed his attempt in a shootout defeat to Chile at East Rutherford, the same venue where Argentina lost this year’s World Cup final. It was the third consecutive major final that saw Argentina receive silver medals as parting gifts, after the 2014 World Cup and 2015 Copa América.
