<\/p>\n
Lionel Messi<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Lionel Messi has said he will not retire from international football after scoring twice as Argentina lifted the 2022 World Cup in a thrilling penalty shootout victory over France on Sunday.<\/p>\n Messi scored the opener from the penalty spot at the Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar, before striking again in extra time when the ball fell to him in the 6-yard box and he prodded home. France forward Kylian Mbappe completed his hat trick with a penalty minutes later, but Argentina won 4-2 in the shootout to win their third World Cup title.<\/p>\n The 35-year-old Messi broke the record for most World Cup appearances on Sunday as he made his 26th game in the competition, having confirmed last month this tournament would be his last.<\/p>\n However, after winning the only major honour that eluded him in his trophy-laden career, Messi told TyC that he intends to continue playing for Argentina a while longer.<\/p>\n \u201cI won the Copa America and the World Cup in a short time,\u201d Messi said. \u201cI love what I do, being in the national team, and I want to continue living a few more games being world champion.<\/p>\n \u201cI am going to take the Cup to Argentina to enjoy it with you,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Messi said it was the realisation of a \u201cchildhood dream\u201d to help Argentina win their first world title since Diego Maradona led them to victory in Mexico in 1986.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s anyone\u2019s childhood dream,\u201d Messi said. \u201cI was lucky to have achieved everything in this career \u2026 and this one that was missing is here.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s madness \u2026 look how she [the World Cup] is, she\u2019s gorgeous. I wanted her so much. I had a vision that this would be the one \u2026 she was getting closer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe suffer, but we already have it (the World Cup). I wanted to close my career with this. I can no longer ask for anything else, thank God, he gave me everything,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni said in his postmatch news conference that Messi will always be welcome to play for Argentina.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, we need to save him a spot for the World Cup 2026,\u201d Scaloni said. \u201cIf he wants to keep playing, he will be with us. I think he is more than entitled to decide whether he wants to keep playing or what he wants to do with his career.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is such a huge pleasure for us to coach him and his teammates. Everything that he transmits to his teammates is something unparalleled, something I have never seen before \u2014 a player, a person who gives so much to his teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lionel Messi \u00a0 Lionel Messi has said he will not retire from international football after scoring twice as Argentina lifted the 2022 World Cup in a thrilling penalty shootout victory over France on Sunday. Messi scored the opener from the penalty spot at the Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar, before striking again in extra time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1267918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[262,2297,26147,784],"class_list":["post-1267917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cup","tag-messi","tag-retiring","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1267917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1267917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1267917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1267917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}