It isn't quite over yet. Lionel Messi will return a week on Wednesday for his formal farewell in a friendly against Benin, but before that Argentina face two games in which they will begin to experience a future without what Jonathan Wilson, writing in The Guardian, calls "the most potent get-out-of-jail-free card football has known."

Messi's international career falls into two distinct halves. There was the first decade, when there was a sense that he didn't quite fit — somehow insufficiently Argentinian, indifferent to his country. That was always absurd, and can now be recognised as a manifestation of the Argentinian public's frustration at their trophy drought despite the presence in their forward line of one of the best three to play the game.

A decade of redemption

Then Messi retired, distraught after missing a penalty in the shootout against Chile in the Copa América final in 2016. Suddenly Argentina, rather than just lashing out at their biggest star, was forced to confront what it would mean to live without him. The prospect was so appalling it provoked a mass campaign to encourage Messi to reverse his decision.

Since then he has been loved and, despite a shambolic World Cup in 2018, has delivered with two Copas América, a World Cup and another World Cup final. His career was dogged by the accusation that he never matched Diego Maradona's achievements in a national shirt; he ended up having won more.

This retirement will not be overturned. Messi is 39. Those who persuaded him to change his mind in 2016 were perhaps imagining — hoping for — six more years: they got 10. There will be no second thoughts this time. The rupture is real. No longer, when things are going awry, will Argentina be able to turn to the superhero in their midst and ask him to fix it.

The last great escape

The best example came almost at the end, when Argentina trailed Egypt 2-0 with 11 minutes of their World Cup last-16 tie remaining. Barcelona youth team coaches used to speak of the teenage Messi "getting the face on", at which point he would be unstoppable. It happened in Atlanta: it was as though Messi simply decided that wasn't going to be his last World Cup game. Argentina won without needing extra time.

Optimists will draw solace from the fact that Argentina's best performance under Lionel Scaloni probably came in their 4-1 victory against Brazil in a World Cup qualifier in March 2025, when Messi did not play. Leandro Paredes anchored a midfield as Alexis Mac Allister and Enzo Fernández linked exhilaratingly with Rodrigo De Paul and Thiago Almada on the flanks and Julián Alvarez at centre-forward. But football is not just about when things are going well. Even in the bleak times — the years of doubt under Edgardo Bauza and Jorge Sampaoli — there was always the possibility Messi would put things right.

A new cycle begins

The post-Messi future begins next week with games against Bolivia and Burkina Faso. Scaloni has hinted he will sign a contract extension that would take him through to the 2028 Copa América with an option to the 2030 World Cup. That, at least, would provide a measure of stability, but there is little disguising the fact that a new cycle is beginning, just as Scaloni instituted a new era after the 2018 World Cup.

Other than Messi and Nicolás Otamendi, who are retiring after the Benin valediction, Scaloni named a 35-man squad. Of those, 20 were at the World Cup; given Paredes and Nahuel Molina are serving lengthy bans, that represents a remarkable degree of continuity, although Nicolás Tagliafico, at 34, is also understood to be considering his future. But 12 of the squad had played three internationals or fewer, and De Paul and Giovani Lo Celso, who are in their thirties, will play only against Benin, giving the new cohort space to impress in the first two friendlies.

Opportunities at the back and on the flanks

The biggest opportunities, at least in the short term, look to be at the back. Cristian Romero and Lisandro Martínez, both 28, look likely to be the first-choice central defensive pair, but Valentín Gómez of Real Betis and Tomás Palacios, on loan at Estudiantes from Inter, are competing to be back-up. With Molina suspended, Tagliafico ageing and Gonzalo Montiel injured, the real interest is at full-back, where a pair of 22-year-olds could stake a claim to be the future: Agustín Giay of Palmeiras and Román Vega of Zenit.

In Messi's absence there remains a question of formation. Although that Brazil game demonstrated what is possible through inter-movement even without a huge amount of overt creativity, it may be that Scaloni opts for more traditional wingers. Again there are young options: Leonel Flores of Boca Juniors and Roma's Matias Soulé are likely to make their debuts over the next few days.

No replacement for a superhero

And replacing Messi? Wilson concludes that it is just not possible, either at a tactical level or, more significantly, in terms of what he meant for the spirit of the team. A purist, he notes, could even argue that Argentina played better in that Brazil game than they ever could have played with Messi, because of his lack of movement and the way the game had to be built around him. That is always the danger with individualists, but Messi was so spectacularly consistent that the percentage option was to rely on his extraordinary genius — the true extraordinariness of which was how reliable it was.

"Plenty of sides have found a new fluency, a more team-based dynamic, after a major star has moved on. Argentina's ceiling could conceivably rise, but Messi offered a reassurance, a possibility of salvation, that will be sorely missed."

Argentina's ceiling may indeed rise without the game being built around a solitary genius, but the departure of their most reliable saviour leaves a spiritual void no single signing or tactical tweak can fill.