{"id":3898,"date":"2026-10-07T10:21:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/?p=3898"},"modified":"2026-10-07T10:21:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:21:46","slug":"adios-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/?p=3898","title":{"rendered":"Adi\u00f3s MESSI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi will don Argentina\u2019s iconic sky blue-and-white colours for the final time on Wednesday at 5am Bangladesh Time, orchestrating an emotional swansong in front of 85,000 adoring fans at the aptly named Estadio Monumental.<br \/>\nThe 39-year-old maestro brings the curtain down on a glittering 21-year international career in a friendly against Benin.<br \/>\nThe farewell arrives just months after a crushing World Cup final defeat to Spain.<br \/>\n&#8220;I gave it my all; I have nothing left to give,&#8221; Messi confessed upon announcing his retirement, praising the great young players emerging from the ranks.<br \/>\nMessi bows out as Argentina\u2019s ultimate record-breaker, boasting 125 goals and 68 assists in 207 caps.<br \/>\nHis legacy as Diego Maradona\u2019s rightful heir was immortalised by ending a 36-year World Cup drought in Qatar, alongside two Copa America triumphs.<br \/>\nFierce defender Cristian Romero will inherit the captain\u2019s armband.<br \/>\nHowever, Coach Lionel Scaloni confirmed the coveted number 10 jersey remains untouched until after the icon&#8217;s final whistle.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3900\" src=\"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-300x122.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-1024x418.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-768x313.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-1536x627.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-2048x836.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-1920x784.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-1170x478.jpeg 1170w, https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/download-585x239.jpeg 585w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>-DailySun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi will don Argentina\u2019s iconic sky blue-and-white colours for the final&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,40,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","category-sports","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3901,"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3898\/revisions\/3901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhakastatement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}