A parking attendant near a downtown lot did not want to talk about himself. He wanted to talk about his 14-year-old granddaughter, Maite. She supports River, he is a Boca man, and none of that mattered on Monday.

“She has a great obsession with Messi. And now she is very sad,” he told Infobae, before offering his own verdict on the man they had all just lost.

“As my granddaughter says, it shocked all of us, and it was obvious that this was already his end point.”

Then came the sentence Infobae used as its own headline, delivered by a young man stopped elsewhere in the city.

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“I’m sadder than when my grandfather died.”

He called Lionel Messi “the best there is”, and said the goal he had cheered loudest for was a free kick against Chile in the Copa América.

The team dies with him

Several people said the team itself was ending, not just the player.

“For me, today, as many say, football dies. Well, the national team as such,” one man said. “He is a legend of football, for me he is the best in history.”

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A young woman had heard the news in a WhatsApp group and was still shaking.

“I reposted it and we all cried, even my mother.”

She called Messi “the captain of my life” and said everyone around her was now asking the same question: what does Argentina look like without him.

The letter Messi wrote in July

Messi, 39, confirmed the decision on Monday in a handwritten letter shared across his social channels. He had written the note on 21 July, two days after Spain beat Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the World Cup final at MetLife Stadium. He held it back until now, weeks after his father, Jorge, died on 8 August.

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“I gave everything, I have nothing left to give,” Messi wrote. “It was a decision that hurt and still hurts deep down, but I understand it is the moment.”

The Argentina career he closed on Monday runs to 207 matches and 125 goals, more than any other player in the shirt.

Even the tourists cried

Buenos Aires drew in visitors who joined the grief on the pavement. A Venezuelan tourist told Infobae he had woken up to an audio message from a friend, sobbing. Alongside another visitor, he offered the shortest line of the day: “We love him.”

The parking attendant, still thinking about Maite, wanted a softer landing for the player.

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“He has to enjoy it. He has a good family, he is a great kid, he is divine, a person like no other.”

“Let him enjoy it,” he added, more quietly.

Messi remains contracted to Inter Miami in Major League Soccer through 2028.

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