{"id":20629,"date":"2026-08-31T17:58:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T17:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/31\/lionel-messi-announces-retirement-from-international-football-greek-city-times\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T17:58:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T17:58:51","slug":"lionel-messi-announces-retirement-from-international-football-greek-city-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/31\/lionel-messi-announces-retirement-from-international-football-greek-city-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi Announces Retirement From International Football \u2013 Greek City Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-first=\"S\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lionel Messi has officially announced his retirement from international football, bringing an extraordinary 21 year career with Argentina to an end.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 39 year old finishes his international career with 207 appearances and 125 goals, while leading Argentina to the 2022 FIFA World Cup and two Copa Am\u00e9rica titles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Messi\u2019s final appearance for Argentina came in the 2026 World Cup final, where Argentina were defeated by Spain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019ve given everything I had; I have nothing left to give,\u201d Messi wrote in his announcement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After more than two decades representing his country, one of the greatest international careers in football history has come to an end.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n<footer class=\"article-tags entry-footer\">\n<\/footer>\n<div class=\"category_container author-information\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<section id=\"authorpage\" class=\"authorpage\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e431a0aaf2dcb7e221a3bd95d4b4996106e91f12afa178bba01dd45d1cdacc01?s=164&amp;r=g\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e431a0aaf2dcb7e221a3bd95d4b4996106e91f12afa178bba01dd45d1cdacc01?s=328&amp;r=g 2x\" class=\"avatar avatar-164 photo lazyload\" height=\"164\" width=\"164\" decoding=\"async\"\/>\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"author-content\">\n<h5>Athens Bureau<\/h5>\n<p>Athens Bureau is Greek City Times\u2019 news desk in Athens, reporting on Greek politics, society, economy, culture, and breaking national news for readers in Greece and the diaspora.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<i class=\"fa-solid fa-link\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/greekcitytimes.com\/2026\/09\/01\/lionel-messi-announces-retirement-from-international-football\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi has officially announced his retirement from international football, bringing an extraordinary 21 year career with Argentina to an end. The 39 year old finishes his international career with 207 appearances and 125 goals, while leading Argentina to the 2022 FIFA World Cup and two Copa Am\u00e9rica titles. Messi\u2019s final appearance for Argentina came &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Lionel Messi Announces Retirement From International Football \u2013 Greek City Times\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/31\/lionel-messi-announces-retirement-from-international-football-greek-city-times\/#more-20629\" aria-label=\"Read more about Lionel Messi Announces Retirement From International Football \u2013 Greek City Times\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/greekcitytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/HRD4XnYawAIRq-c_upscale-e1788198749436.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in-greece.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}