Buenos Aires is preparing to fill the Monumental one more time for Lionel Messi. River Plate’s stadium, undergoing work to accommodate 101,000 spectators, will host the Argentina captain’s national-team farewell on Tuesday, with tickets already sold out for an occasion that brings his international story back to the ground where it took root.
The choice of Núñez is more than a matter of capacity. Across Argentina, matches have also been staged in Córdoba, Mendoza, Santa Fe and at Boca Juniors’ Bombonera, but the Monumental has remained the enduring home of the national side. Alejandro Wall described it as the setting in which Messi grew into an Argentina player, while historian Ezequiel Fernández Moores pointed to River’s ground as the country’s historical international venue, particularly since the 1978 World Cup.
The distinction also carries a Buenos Aires football logic. The Bombonera may be Argentina’s most immediately recognisable stadium and was closely tied to Diego Maradona, whose own farewell took place there under the phrase “La pelota no se mancha”. Messi’s Argentina journey, however, has been written most consistently across the city at the Monumental.
From number 19 to the captain’s farewell
Messi first appeared for the senior side before an Argentine home crowd there on 9 October 2005. He was 18, wore number 19 and started José Pekerman’s World Cup qualifying match against Peru, which Argentina won 2-0. Having made his senior debut in a friendly against Hungary two months earlier, Messi won the penalty that Juan Román Riquelme converted to open the scoring.
His first goal on home soil followed at the Monumental in October 2008, when he headed in during a 2-1 victory over Uruguay. Riquelme, then wearing Argentina’s number 10, supplied the cross in what became his final match with that shirt. Five months later, in the same stadium, Messi inherited it.
That handover came on 28 March 2009, with Maradona taking charge of his first competitive match as Argentina coach against Venezuela in qualification for the 2010 World Cup. Messi, 21 at the time, scored after 26 minutes in a 4-0 win and also set up Carlos Tevez. The player regarded as Maradona’s successor had taken on the number most associated with the coach standing beside the pitch.
There were later nights that transformed the relationship between player, team and crowd. In September 2021, Argentina returned home to face Bolivia after winning the Copa América, Messi’s first major trophy with the senior national side. He scored all three goals in a 3-0 victory, moving from 77 to 79 international goals and beyond Pelé as South America’s leading scorer for a national team at that point. After the final whistle, Argentina presented the Copa América to the Monumental crowd.
Two years later, on 23 March 2023, the stadium became the scene of the first home celebration after Argentina’s World Cup triumph. Panama were beaten 2-0 in a friendly, with Messi scoring the second from a free kick for the 800th professional goal of his career. Players and relatives stayed on the field afterwards as he raised the World Cup before a full house.
Messi’s most recent emphatic Monumental display came in October 2024, when he scored a hat-trick and created two further goals in a 6-0 win over Bolivia. By September 2025, the farewells had already begun: with his family watching, he scored twice against Venezuela in a 3-0 victory in his final World Cup qualifying appearance in Argentina.
Now the long arc closes where it began: from the teenager in number 19 to the captain in number 10, Argentina’s appearance record holder and all-time leading scorer. The expanded Monumental will provide the final home setting for a player whose first Argentine steps, first home goal, first match in the number 10 and celebrations with both Copa América and World Cup trophies all unfolded on the same grass.
