Five days after Lionel Messi walked away from Argentina's national team, the country still cannot agree on how to say goodbye to the number he wore, not just the man himself. A widely read opinion piece from Argentine sports journalist Ezequiel Fernández Moores argues the No. 10 shirt should keep circulating rather than get frozen in his honor, reigniting a fight that first flared up when Diego Maradona hung up his boots a quarter-century ago.
The stakes reach well past Buenos Aires. In Latin American soccer culture, the No. 10 is not just a number on a jersey — it's handed down to a team's most gifted playmaker and treated almost like a family heirloom. Whatever Argentina decides will likely shape how other soccer nations think about numbering tributes to their own departed legends.
- Lionel Messi retired from Argentina's national team on August 31, 2026, closing a 21-year career with a national-team record 125 goals and 207 caps.
- AFA president Claudio Tapia pledged as far back as December 2023 to retire the No. 10 for good, but FIFA's rule requiring squads to number every player 1 through 26 makes that impossible in official tournaments — the same obstacle that blocked a tribute to Diego Maradona in 2001.
- Columnist Ezequiel Fernández Moores argues Argentina should let a future star inherit the number instead of freezing it, reviving a debate that has divided fans since Maradona's playing days.
A retirement that paused a nation
Messi announced his exit from La Albiceleste on Monday, August 31, capping 21 years of international duty with a national-team record 125 goals and 207 caps. "I emptied myself. I have nothing more to give," he wrote in a Spanish-language statement shared on Instagram. Argentine President Javier Milei called him an "incredible man," while AFA president Claudio Tapia thanked him for making the country believe in magic.
The farewell closed out a run that began in 2005 and ended in heartbreak: a 1-0 extra-time loss to Spain in the World Cup final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, a match Argentina finished a man down after a red card in stoppage time. Even in defeat, the 39-year-old had his best individual World Cup yet, scoring eight goals across the tournament — more than in any of his five earlier appearances — and briefly held the record for most career World Cup goals in history before France's Kylian Mbappé passed him days later. Messi's father and longtime agent, Jorge, died less than three weeks after that final following a prolonged illness, a loss that weighed heavily on Messi in the lead-up to his decision.
A promise the federation cannot keep alone
The push to shelve Messi's number is not a reaction to this week's news. AFA president Claudio Tapia made the pledge public at a press conference in late December 2023, months before Messi had even said he was thinking about retiring: "We will not allow anyone else to wear the number 10 after him." Tapia repeated the same commitment in a 2024 interview with the Spanish outlet Sport, and Argentine fans have renewed calls for the tribute now that Messi has actually left the squad.
There's a precedent for the gesture, and it did not end well. After Maradona's international career ended, the AFA's executive committee voted in 2001 to retire his number ahead of the following year's World Cup. FIFA rejected the plan outright, and midfielder Ariel Ortega ended up wearing the No. 10 at the 2002 tournament in Korea and Japan anyway. Former World Cup winner Mario Kempes publicly disagreed with the idea at the time, arguing the shirt belonged to the position, not to any one man.
Why FIFA still stands in the way
That same rulebook applies today. FIFA requires every World Cup and Copa América squad to fill numbers 1 through 26 without skipping any, a cap that expanded from a smaller 23-player limit once tournament rosters grew for the 2022 World Cup. Leaving No. 10 empty in an official squad list simply isn't allowed, no matter what the AFA wants. Retiring a number is common practice in club soccer — Napoli hasn't issued Maradona's No. 10 since 2000, and Ajax retired Johan Cruyff's No. 14 in 2007 — but national federations answer to FIFA's tournament rules, not their own internal pledges.
Reporting since Messi's announcement suggests the AFA has effectively accepted this limit rather than continuing to fight it. The federation released an emotional tribute video honoring his career, but has stopped short of claiming it can force the number out of official competition, since it legally cannot. An institutional gesture, such as permanently displaying the jersey at Argentina's training complex outside Buenos Aires, remains possible without touching the competitive numbering system.
The columnist's case for letting go
Fernández Moores takes a different position than either the AFA's aspiration or FIFA's rulebook. He argues that Maradona and Messi never passed the number to each other so much as each redefined it in his own image, and that freezing it now would rob some future Argentine talent of the same chance. Invoking the familiar Spanish belief that good things arrive in threes rather than twos, he suggests the country isn't ready to close the door on a third legend inheriting the shirt.
The debate resonates well outside Argentina's borders. Latin American fans trace the No. 10 mystique back to Pelé, and for immigrant communities across the Americas who grew up watching Maradona and then Messi wear it on staticky broadcasts from home, the question of who wears it next carries a piece of identity that goes beyond sport.
What actually happens next
Nothing is changing on paper immediately. Argentina's next competitive squad list isn't imminent, so there's no pressing deadline for the federation to hand No. 10 to a player or leave the question unresolved a little longer. But the emotional stakes are already locked in: a number that carried Argentina through two of its greatest eras is once again a stand-in for what the country owes its departed idols — and what it will expect from whoever eventually tries to wear their shoes.
