Buenos Aires gave Lionel Messi a farewell shaped as much by song as by football. Before more than 85,000 people at the Monumental in Núñez, Argentina’s captain played what was described as his final match for the national team, a 3-0 win over Benin in which he contributed to every goal. Afterward, as Soledad Pastorutti sang “Brindis” on the pitch, the occasion joined Messi to Diego Maradona through a song that has become part of Argentina’s football memory.
Messi supplied two assists and converted a penalty for his 126th Argentina goal on Tuesday, before the stadium moved from match-night celebration into a long goodbye. Pastorutti’s performance became one of the defining images of the evening: Messi visibly affected, supporters in the stands in tears and even stadium security staff caught in the emotion of the moment.
“Brindis” had already travelled with this Argentina generation through its greatest recent landmarks. Messi used the track in a social-media video marking one month since the 2022 World Cup triumph in Qatar, and had previously explained why it mattered to the squad. Speaking in February 2023, he said the group kept certain songs close before Copa América campaigns, with Pastorutti’s music accompanying them through the 2021 Copa América success and the World Cup run.
For the captain, it was not simply a fitting soundtrack for a final night. The song had become associated with the dressing room’s journey from years of frustration to continental and world titles, carrying themes of conviction, sacrifice, gratitude and the pursuit of a dream.
A song linking Argentina’s two No. 10s
The connection began two decades earlier. In 2006, Pastorutti performed “Brindis” for Maradona at Buenos Aires’s Gran Rex theatre, where the former Argentina captain was moved as he listened. Footage from that encounter resurfaced when Messi was similarly overcome by the song, giving the performance at the Monumental a resonance far beyond a ceremonial farewell.
Written by Afo Verde, “Brindis” has grown into a particularly meaningful piece of Argentine popular music. Pastorutti, widely known as La Sole, is one of the country’s most recognisable folk-pop voices, and her appearance alongside Maradona has remained a recurring reference point on dates connected with Diego. That earlier scene helped give her meeting with Messi the feeling of a passing connection between the two defining figures of Argentina’s footballing imagination.
There had already been a direct meeting between Pastorutti and Messi. On 27 March 2023, CONMEBOL staged “La Noche de las Estrellas” in Asunción, Paraguay, honouring Argentina after the World Cup. Players, coaching staff and officials attended the event, where images from Messi’s career played as Pastorutti performed “Brindis”.
She approached Messi, held his hands and sang to him before embracing him. In his response, Messi said the song held a special place in Argentina’s dressing room and recalled the moment Pastorutti had sung it for Maradona. He thanked her for performing it for him and his teammates, calling it a beautiful occasion.
Back in the Monumental three years later, that shared history was felt across the ground. Pastorutti said afterward that she sometimes wondered whether she deserved such affection, but that the happiness of the night would remain with her for life. She asked above all for good health and for the people closest to her to be able to share such moments.
Argentina’s farewell to Messi therefore unfolded in a familiar Buenos Aires language: a full stadium, a No. 10, tears and a song that had first reached Maradona before returning to accompany the end of Messi’s international playing story.
