Curtain drawn on Messi's glittering Argentina career | Football Weekly

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Messi farewell chaos and the curious rise of Europe's smaller teams

The show examines the chaotic buildup to Lionel Messi's Argentina farewell games, especially Burkina Faso and Benin's troubled preparations and reports about how Argentina chose opponents. It then discusses San Marino's improvement through the Nations League, Gibraltar's misleading unbeaten run and James Scanlon, plus Russia's strange existence in friendly-only exile.

After Lionel Messi leaves the international stage, his final game for Argentina was mired in controversy. Paul Watson reveals the shocking lengths Benin and Burkina Faso had to go to in order to play a part in the his farewell tour. Watch the full podcast episode ► https://youtu.be/uN6hqlyZkrU Subscribe to Guardian Football ► https://www.youtube.com/@guardianfootball?subconfirmation=1 We want your feedback! If you had any thoughts on our coverage of the World Cup, please let us know here ► www.theguardian.com/YTWorldCupSurvey The Guardian publishes independent journalism, made possible by supporters. Contribute to The Guardian today ► https://support.theguardian.com/ Guardian Football Weekly: https://www.tiktok.com/@guardianfootballweekly https://www.instagram.com/guardianfootballweekly/ Website ► https://www.theguardian.com Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/theguardian Bluesky ► https://bsky.app/profile/sport.theguardian.com Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/guardiansport/ The Guardian on YouTube: The Guardian ► https://www.youtube.com/@theguardian Football Weekly podcast ► https://www.youtube.com/@footballweeklypodcast Guardian News ► https://www.youtube.com/@guardiannews Guardian Australia ► https://www.youtube.com/@guardianaustralia Guardian Sport ► https://www.youtube.com/@guardiansport

Transcript

I want to talk a little bit about the craziness of Lionel Messi's farewell games, not specifically the Benin game, although that was mad, too. But this one against Burkina Faso, that was the one that preceded it, because this was a crazy story that um this game was lined up and there were a lot of trouble a lot of trouble within the Burkina Faso Football Federation. They were falling out with a lot of the players. Some of the players refused to go because I think they looked at the itinerary that they had scheduled for this trip and they were like, "Well, this is brutal. We're going to be cutting this very fine. Like we're landing, we're playing this game against Argentina, which we're supposed to be kind of ready for." They weren't happy. Others had financial cripples with the federation. So almost the entire Burkina Faso team pulled out, the senior team, which left this crazy situation where they had to scramble an under-23 team uh and call it the senior team and pack them off to uh Buenos Aires. That got even worse because the plane suffered a technical fault. So this Burkina Faso basically under-23 team arrived 5 hours before kickoff in Argentina to play against Argentina. And it's kind of incredible. They they had to do all of their like entry procedures, check into their hotel. They basically went straight to the stadium. They lost 7-0. They were 3-0 down in 12 minutes. Um but this kind of tied in a bit with the fact that obviously there's this huge fanfare and circus around Lionel Messi's finale, like his final game against Benin. And um that was also a bit of a mess because Benin's players apparently flew economy. They did a 23-hour flight in economy. They had a dreadful time, got there, and again just did not look like a team that should be playing against anyone, let alone uh Lionel Messi. But the backdrop to a lot of this, I think, is these reports that Argentina basically looked for an opponent for these final games for Messi that wouldn't demand a fee or a share of the the proceeds. So that was why they ended up with some slightly odd opponents for this this final game. >> I've done I do 24 hours in economy quite regularly with small children. Getting out of that plane and then having to play Argentina. At least Paredes was suspended, right? At least you got okay, they might kick me, but this guy like you just think oh I need I do need a day to to to stretch out before I >> Yeah, before Messi runs you ragged. >> Exactly. [laughter] >> There's also this great moment in the the Benin game. They actually did pretty well. They gave a good account of themselves. They they lost 3-0, but there's this great moment where Messi steps up to take the penalty. I think it's the third goal. And obviously this is like going to be Messi's finale. You can see the look of the goalkeeper's face that he's like, well, I'm clearly not going to save it if I try, but what if I did save Messi's last ever but he would have been he would have been booed out of there. Imagine. >> He had done well, wouldn't he? It was quite a good penalty. Mention San Marino, they were seconds away from a a draw in Albania. Would I mean I I I I struggle now with how good like they when I see the Faroe's score a goal, I think of you know, our man with the bubble hat, but it's not the same, is it? Like these teams aren't as rubbish as I think they are. >> No, but well, no, they're not. San Marino are on this incredibly good trajectory really in many ways, but that would still have been the biggest result in their history for sure. They were yeah, literally a minute away from drawing away to Albania. And what was amazing is they have I think I spoke about these guys before. They have this this fan group the Brigata Mai Una Gioia as in the never any joy brigade, the San Marino official fan group who are mostly Italians. There's a couple of Germans in there and just just basically they look they're foreigners who support San Marino. And they'd gone quite a few of them to Tirana to watch this game and there were literally 20, I think 20 San Marino fans in a stadium of 20,000 just going absolutely mental in the corner. And then the inevitable happens and Albania get the winner, but yeah, honestly San Marino are a great example I think of why the Nations League works for smaller nations because they have improved just vastly from being able to play against teams where they're not definitely going to lose 6-0, so they have to barricade the back line and obviously they got promoted from the bottom level of the the Nations League and now you know, they're giving a pretty good account of themselves playing against better teams. So, I think they are probably one of the teams in the world that has benefited the most from the Nations League. >> Did you want to tell us what Gibraltar have in common with Spain and the Netherlands? >> Yeah, Gibraltar are the best team in Europe pretty much now. So, they they they are on the they only well, the only teams to have a longer unbeaten run in UEFA are Spain and the Netherlands. But, I mean what's weird about this is they've gone from losing 12 in a row to going on to this pretty astonishing unbeaten run. I think it's six games. We won't dig too deep into who they've been playing because it slightly undoes this. They they played British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, São Tomé and Príncipe, Andorra and Malta. >> a tax haven mini league, isn't it? Are they all tax >> It is. Yeah, they well, they've been playing a lot of Yeah, they're very good at finding cool friendlies. They played New Caledonia the other like a year ago as well. And definitely a word for James Scanlon who is kind of rare in that he is well, he's 20 years old. He scored six goals for Gibraltar. He actually came through the Man United Academy, moved to Arsenal and he's now got six goals and the all-time top goalscorer for Gibraltar has eight. That's Liam Walker who basically sort of he's in his late 30s kind of finished. So, James Scanlon might become the top scorer at very, very young age and he is he's yeah, scoring a lot of goals and just nice to see Gibraltar being listed alongside Spain and the Netherlands as as you know, Europe's form teams in all these power tables. It's brilliant. >> Um the the Football Union of Russia is interesting, isn't it? We also haven't really talked about them a lot, but they are They drew three all with Nigeria. They you know, they played lots of friendlies, Egypt, Namibia, Trinidad, Iran, Burkina Faso. What So, what's They are just doing endless friendlies. They're still banned from competitive football. I know Infantino has perhaps mentioned them coming back in. But I just wonder what the you know, what the situation is there. >> Well, yeah, they've just played Nigeria for the second time in 16 months. It was three all. Um, Nigeria came back from 3-1 down. Nigeria didn't I mean, it was a very experimental side. Nine players played uh made their debuts for Nigeria because I think a lot of players just basically didn't really want to play Russia, I think is the subtext. Um, or, you know, or or had other stuff on. But yeah, Russia have been in this weird situation so since they were suspended by uh UEFA and FIFA, I think that's it's February 2022, they've not been able to play anyone uh in UEFA certainly. So, I think UEFA teams just can't play them. They they would be sanctioned for that. So, they've assembled this really weird list of opponents. Um, they beat Brunei 11-0 in November '24. They beat Cuba 8-0. They've had these weird games, but they've also played in amongst that they played Egypt. Uh, they actually lost to Egypt. They played Cameroon, Zambia, Grenada, Chile. It's just a really odd assortment of of games. And a bit like what I just said with Gibraltar, they actually went on a crazy long unbeaten run because they were playing teams that were just obviously not of a massively high level. Um, and obviously it doesn't count. None of these games really count for anything. Um, but the but the other really weird thing for them is their coach, Valery Karpin, uh who was initially doing this job alongside being club coach of FC Rostov and then Dinamo Moscow. He actually took over in 2021. So, he's not really known much else. Like he was there just before their ban. And then he's been there through the ban. So, he's having one of the weirdest kind of spells in charge of a national team that he's in charge of a national team who can only play teams effectively willing to cross uh a worldwide picket line affair in a in a way. And so, he's just yeah, they're they're playing these weird assortment of opponents with no real sense of when that's going to end.