Messi to play 2026 World Cup? Luis Suarez reveals

“Obviously, after being away from the national team, that’s been lost a bit more on my side than on his. But we haven’t talked about it yet (retirement). We can talk about it until we’re older, and we can make the decision, but we haven’t really talked in detail,” Lucho concluded.

Jorge Mas, owner of Inter Miami, had already hinted at it last week, when he said that Messi’s contract renewal at Inter Miami that ends in December depends on Messi’s “desire, given his health, to play and defend the world cup in the United States with Argentina”.

A fortnight back, after Argentina had qualified for the world cup, their coach Lionel Scaloni had spoken about the need not to pressurise Messi. “”We will see what happens, there’s plenty of time,” Scaloni said. “We must go one game a time otherwise [we] will be speaking about the same thing the rest of the year and we need to leave him alone, we will see. He will decide it whenever he wants, let’s not drive him crazy with this.”