Argentina Will Stop Every Match in the 10th Minute This Weekend to Honour Lionel Messi
Every football match in Argentina this weekend will pause in the 10th minute for a minute of applause in honour of Lionel Messi, who retired from international football this week at the age of 39.
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) announced the tribute, under which referees will halt play at the 10th minute — a nod to the number 10 shirt Messi wore for his country across a record 207 appearances. The applause has already begun: a Copa Argentina match between Velez Sarsfield and Boca Juniors stopped briefly in the 10th minute to pay tribute Sportstar, and this weekend the gesture extends to every division of the domestic game BBC Sport.
The choice of the 10th minute carries a simple weight. Messi wore the number 10 for Argentina from his debut in 2005 — a 63rd-minute substitute appearance in a 2-1 friendly win over Hungary — through to his final match: the 2026 World Cup final defeat by Spain in July. In between, he scored a record 125 goals for his country, captained Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar in 2022, and lifted two Copa America titles (the Copa America being the senior championship of South American football).
Messi is an eight-time Ballon d'Or winner — the award given to the world's best player each year. He sits second on the all-time World Cup scoring list with 21 goals, one behind France's Kylian Mbappe, and second in all-time international goals, behind Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, who has 146.
This retirement, though, feels final in a way his last one did not. Messi first stepped away from the national team in 2016 after a Copa America final defeat by Chile, in which he missed a penalty in the shootout. He reversed that decision within weeks. This time, Messi said the death of his father, Jorge, who died aged 68 in August following a long illness, left him even more convinced he was making the right call BBC Sport.
He will continue to play club football in the United States with Inter Miami, where his contract runs to the end of the 2028 season.
There is a particular poignancy to Argentina honouring a player who never played a senior club match in his native country. Messi moved to Barcelona's La Masia academy as a 13-year-old and spent his entire European career in Spain and France before heading to Major League Soccer. The AFA's tribute is, in effect, the homecoming his club career never provided.
The minute of applause is designed to suspend everything else. While the match is stopped, there will be no rivalries, no results, no league positions — just a country standing to recognise a player who gave them their first World Cup in 36 years TyC Sports.
For fans who remember the 2022 World Cup final — the 3-3 draw with France, the penalties, the eruption in Buenos Aires — the 10th minute this weekend will carry the echo of all of it.
