Inter Miami CF v CF Montreal
MIAMI, FLORIDA - AUGUST 29: Lionel Messi #10 of Inter Miami CF celebrates scoring his team's fifth goal and his hat trick with teammates during the MLS match between Inter Miami CF and CF Montreal at Nu Stadium on August 29, 2026 in Miami, Florida.

Five days after Lionel Messi walked away from Argentina's national team, the country is still divided over how to say goodbye not only to the player, but also to the number he wore. In a widely read opinion piece, Argentine sports journalist Ezequiel Fernández Moores argues that the No. 10 should continue to circulate rather than be frozen in Messi's honour, reigniting a debate that first erupted when Diego Maradona retired a quarter of a century ago.

The issue extends far beyond Buenos Aires. In Latin American football culture, the No. 10 is more than a shirt number: it is passed on to a team's most gifted playmaker and treated almost like a family heirloom. Argentina's decision could influence how other footballing nations approach tributes involving the numbers worn by their departed legends.

  • Lionel Messi retired from Argentina's national team on August 31, 2026, bringing a 21-year international career to a close with national records of 125 goals and 207 caps.
  • AFA president Claudio Tapia pledged as early as December 2023 to retire the No. 10 permanently, but FIFA's rule requiring squads to assign numbers from 1 to 26 makes that impossible at official tournaments — the same obstacle that blocked a tribute to Diego Maradona in 2001.
  • Columnist Ezequiel Fernández Moores says Argentina should allow a future star to inherit the number rather than freeze it, reviving a debate that has divided supporters since Maradona's playing days.

A retirement that brought a nation to a standstill

Messi announced his departure from La Albiceleste on Monday, August 31, ending 21 years of international duty with national records of 125 goals and 207 caps. "I emptied myself. I have nothing more to give," he wrote in a Spanish-language statement posted on Instagram. Argentine President Javier Milei described him as an "incredible man," while AFA president Claudio Tapia thanked him for making the country believe in magic.

The farewell ended a career that began in 2005 and concluded in heartbreak: a 1-0 extra-time defeat by Spain in the World Cup final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Argentina finished the match with 10 men after a red card in stoppage time. Despite the defeat, the 39-year-old enjoyed his best individual World Cup, scoring eight goals — more than in any of his previous five appearances — and briefly held the record for the most career World Cup goals before France's Kylian Mbappé overtook him days later. Messi's father and long-time agent, Jorge, died less than three weeks after the final following a prolonged illness, a loss that weighed heavily on Messi before he made his decision.

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Argentina's Lionel Messi takes a picture of late Argentine football star Diego Armando Maradona on his jersey before the start of the South American qualification football match for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 against Chile at the Estadio Unico Madre de Ciudades stadium in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, on June 3, 2021.

A promise the federation cannot keep on its own

The campaign to retire Messi's number did not begin with this week's announcement. AFA president Claudio Tapia made the pledge at a press conference in late December 2023, months before Messi had even said he was considering retirement: "We will not allow anyone else to wear the number 10 after him." Tapia repeated the commitment in a 2024 interview with Spanish outlet Sport, and Argentine supporters have renewed calls for the tribute now that Messi has left the squad.

There is a precedent for such a gesture — and it did not end well. After Maradona's international career ended, the AFA 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 wore the No. 10 at the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan. Former World Cup winner Mario Kempes publicly opposed the idea at the time, arguing that the shirt belonged to the position, not to one particular player.

Why FIFA remains an obstacle

The same rulebook applies today. FIFA requires every World Cup and Copa América squad to use numbers from 1 to 26 without skipping any. The limit was increased from 23 players when tournament squads were expanded for the 2022 World Cup. Leaving No. 10 vacant on an official squad list is simply not permitted, regardless of what the AFA wants. Retiring a number is common in club football — Napoli has not issued Maradona's No. 10 since 2000, while Ajax retired Johan Cruyff's No. 14 in 2007 — but national federations must follow FIFA's tournament regulations rather than their own pledges.

Reports since Messi's announcement suggest that the AFA has effectively accepted this limitation instead of continuing to challenge it. The federation released an emotional tribute video celebrating his career, but stopped short of claiming it could remove the number from official competition, because it cannot legally do so. An institutional gesture — such as permanently displaying the shirt at Argentina's training complex outside Buenos Aires — remains possible without altering the competitive numbering system.

The case for letting the number live on

Fernández Moores takes a different view from both the AFA's ambition and FIFA's regulations. He argues that Maradona and Messi did not so much pass the number from one to the other as redefine it in their own images, and that freezing it now would deny a future Argentine talent the same opportunity. Drawing on the familiar Spanish belief that good things come in threes rather than twos, he suggests Argentina is not ready to close the door on a third legend inheriting the shirt.

The debate resonates well beyond Argentina. Latin American fans trace the mystique of the No. 10 back to Pelé, while immigrant communities across the Americas who grew up watching Maradona and then Messi wear it on grainy broadcasts from home see the question of who wears it next as something tied to identity as much as sport.

What happens next

Nothing will change officially in the immediate future. Argentina's next competitive squad announcement is not imminent, so the federation faces no urgent deadline to hand the No. 10 to another player or leave the issue unresolved for a while longer. But the emotional stakes are already clear: a number that carried Argentina through two of its greatest eras has once again become a symbol of what the country owes its departed idols — and what it will expect from whoever eventually tries to fill their shoes.

Originally published on Latin Times