The world bade a tearful goodbye to Lionel Messi today as the Argentina star called time on his illustrious international career.
He bagged two assists and scored a penalty in his farewell match against Benin, who lost 3-0 in the Buenos Aires encounter today.
Messi's time with the Argentine national team spanned an incredible 21 years, during which time he lifted the World Cup, the Copa America (x2) and one Finalissima to complete the international trophy set after a series of heartbreaks in various finals earlier on.
During his lengthy and glorious career, he also traveled far and wide, covering almost every inhabited continent on earth and gracing hundreds of stadiums around the world. But there's one iconic stadium in Europe he could never play in, with Argentina.
Messi never played at Signal Iduna Park with Argentina
Across his international career, Messi has played in over 150 global venues spanning South America, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. After doing my own research, I found out that the former Barcelona star has graced 24 different stadiums across Europe with Argentina.
Where he never played though, is Borussia Dortmund's historic Signal Iduna Park. During his playing time, Argentina had visited the site just once, back in October 2019 as they faced off with hosts Germany in an exciting rematch of the 2014 World Cup final.
However, Messi was missing in action. He was serving a three-month suspension after CONMEBOL penalized him for accusing them of corruption after that year's Copa America semi-final loss to Brazil.
Argentina never played another game in Dortmund again, and now with Messi hanging up his boots, we won't get to see him grace the iconic stadium with Argentina ever again either.
In fact, Messi's only appearance at Dortmund's home turf came with FC Barcelona a year before Argentina were scheduled to play Germany, as the BVB drew the Catalan giants in the same Champions League group and hosted them on the opening day.
What was expected to be a thrilling contest, rather ended in a cagey 0-0 draw with Messi failing to get on target. Marco Reus had the chance to win it for the Prussians from the penalty spot in the second half, but his attempt was saved by his compatriot, Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
Messi retires from international football for Argentina with record-breaking 208 caps and 126 goals, also the most in the nation's history.
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