EZEIZA
\nArgentina coach Lionel Scaloni said on Thursday that next month\u2019s friendly against Benin in Buenos Aires will give Lionel Messi the chance \u201cto say goodbye the way he wants to\u201d. \u201cIt will be hard not to cry that day, it\u2019s a privilege to be there,\u201d said Scaloni, whose side finished runners-up to Spain at the 2026 World Cup.
\nMessi, an eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner, announced his international retirement at the end of August at the age of 39, but has been included in the squad for the farewell match by Scaloni. The coach, who led Argentina to a third World Cup title in 2022, said he had played his part in ensuring the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain forward would have one final appearance in front of Argentina\u2019s fans. \u201cI did my bit because I want to be there for his farewell and, since I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll still be here in the future, we did everything possible so he could take part in this match,\u201d Scaloni said. Scaloni also said Messi, who scored his 100th goal for Inter Miami earlier this month, deserved to win another Ballon d\u2019Or.
\n\u201cIf the award is for the best player\u2026\u201d he said when asked whether Messi should receive this year\u2019s prize. Argentina begin a series of three friendlies against Bolivia on September 30 in Cordoba before taking on Burkina Faso in Buenos Aires on October 3. Messi will join the squad for the third game against Benin on October 6 at River Plate\u2019s Estadio Monumental, which can accommodate 85,000 spectators.
\nScaloni declined to comment on his own future as Argentina coach, with his contract due to expire at the end of the year. \u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, there is nothing new,\u201d he said, adding that he has not yet held talks with Argentine Football Association president Claudio Tapia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EZEIZA Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said on Thursday that next month\u2019s friendly against Benin in Buenos Aires will give Lionel Messi the chance \u201cto say goodbye the way he wants to\u201d. \u201cIt will be hard not to cry that day, it\u2019s a privilege to be there,\u201d said Scaloni, whose side finished runners-up to Spain at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103515,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103488\/revisions\/103515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}