Mes­si pre­vi­ous­ly did not rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the World Cup, which will be held in 2026 in the USA, Cana­da and Mex­i­co.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to the 2026 World Cup, which will be the first with 48 teams. The tour­na­ment will be grandiose, and what bet­ter way to host it than in Amer­i­ca.

I hope that Mes­si will play at the next World Cup, in 2030 and 2034. Let him play as much as he wants”, quotes the head of FIFA Pren­sa Foot­ball.

Now the strik­er is 36 years old. Last year, the for­ward helped the nation­al team win the World Cup. At the tour­na­ment in Qatar, he scored sev­en goals, pro­vid­ed three assists and was rec­og­nized as the best play­er.

Accord­ing to the deci­sion of Time mag­a­zine, the foot­ball play­er of the Amer­i­can club Inter Mia­mi and the Argen­tine nation­al team Lionel Mes­si was rec­og­nized as the ath­lete of 2023.

In the 2022/23 sea­son, Mes­si achieved suc­cess with PSG, win­ning the French cham­pi­onship. In the sum­mer, the Argen­tine moved to Inter Mia­mi, and in August the team won the League Cup, win­ning its first tro­phy. In sev­en match­es of the tour­na­ment, Mes­si scored as many as 10 goals.

At the end of Octo­ber, Mes­si won the pres­ti­gious Bal­lon d’Or award for the 8th time in his career, becom­ing the best play­er in the world.

Ear­ly world cham­pi­on in the Argenti­na nation­al foot­ball team, Lionel Mes­si, com­plained about traf­fic jams, heat and humid­i­ty in Mia­mi to Time mag­a­zine:

“Per­haps the most dif­fi­cult thing to adapt to is traf­fic jams, although they were also seri­ous in Paris. And then the heat and humid­i­ty in the sum­mer. Being at the beach or on vaca­tion is enjoy­able. But from the point of view of sports, train­ing or games, espe­cial­ly in the sum­mer, per­haps this is too much, and it shows”, said Mes­si.