Messi announces international retirement

BREAKING: Lionel Messi announces his retirement from the Argentina national team at age 39, ending an international career that saw him win the 2022 World Cup and reach the 2026 final.

Lionel Messi has retired from the Argentina national team.

He announced it on Instagram, and not with a press release. He posted a photo of a handwritten notebook page in Spanish, saying the time has come, that the decision hurt and still hurts deep down. He's 39. Six World Cups, the trophy in Qatar in 2022, and one last final this summer, the one Argentina lost to Spain.

Here's the detail that stops you. He wrote those words on July 21st, two days after that final. Then his father Jorge died on August 8th in Rosario, at 68. Messi added a footnote saying that after what happened with his dad, he was even more convinced than before.

This is what he's leaving behind, the number ten shirt, the fists in the air, a whole country's identity carried on one man's back for two decades. He swore he gave it everything, and honestly, nobody in Argentina would argue.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.