Lionel Scaloni did not try to hide the tears. Argentina had just beaten Benin 3-0 at the Estadio Monumental and Lionel Messi had walked off the pitch in the national shirt for the last time, and the man who coached him through a World Cup, two Copa Americas and a Finalissima was in no mood to pretend it was business as usual.
“The tears are because so many things are going through my head,” Scaloni said after the match. “Not seeing him anymore will be sad.”
Messi finished with a goal and two assists in his 208th and final appearance for Argentina, converting a penalty on 71 minutes after setting up Nicolás Otamendi and Nico Paz. He left international football with 126 goals, a national record.
What Scaloni says he has lost
The coach’s grief was specific, not generic. He has worked with the greatest player in the game’s history for seven years, and he knows exactly what he no longer has at his disposal.
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“The feeling of having him on your side is incomparable. I have never seen that aura in anyone else in my life.”
“That player who could unlock the game with his brilliance, you don’t have him anymore.”
Before kick-off, Scaloni had framed it the same way, telling reporters that “only nostalgia remains now that he won’t be there.” The post-match version was the same thought with the match played and the shirt folded away.
He also pointed to the method he intends to use to compensate.
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“The only way to compensate for his absence is with a great team, where everyone contributes.”
Romero gets the armband
The rebuild has a first fixed point. Scaloni confirmed late last month that Cristian Romero, the 28-year-old Tottenham centre-back, inherits the captaincy from Messi.
“The captain is going to be Cuti. He was already the third captain after Leo and Ota [Nicolás Otamendi],” Scaloni said, naming Emiliano Martínez, Rodrigo De Paul and Lautaro Martínez as the other players in the leadership group.
A verbal deal to see it through
Scaloni’s own future is also, in his mind, settled. His existing contract was set to run out at the end of the year, but ESPN’s Diego Monroig reported in late June that the coach and the Argentine Football Association had already shaken hands on a verbal extension through 2031, covering the 2028 Copa America and the 2030 World Cup co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with centenary opening matches in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
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The dream, Scaloni said after the Benin game, had been the Messi years themselves.
“It has been a dream come true. I never thought I would be the coach of the best footballer in history.”
Argentina’s next international window is in November.
