Messi at 38 Chases the Second World Cup No Argentine Has Won

Lionel Messi arrives at the 2026 World Cup managing a hamstring overload, training separately from Argentina’s squad at their Kansas City base after being forced off in the 73rd minute of Inter Miami’s final home MLS match. No Argentine captain in history has won the World Cup twice, not Diego Maradona, who reached back-to-back finals in 1986 and 1990. Nine days from the Group J opener against Algeria, Messi is the first in an albiceleste shirt to have a genuine shot at it.

That disrupted preparation is the first real test of Lionel Scaloni’s conviction that Messi, at 38 and entering a record sixth World Cup, can lead Argentina to back-to-back titles. “The real plan is to manage him gradually, see how he responds, gauge his sensations, and then make our decisions,” Scaloni told Diario Olé following Messi’s exit from the Philadelphia Union match.

The Hamstring That Woke Argentina

Inter Miami confirmed muscle fatigue in Messi’s left hamstring after further tests, an upgrade from the initial “overload” description that dominated Argentine sports coverage within hours of the May 25 match. After leaving the field, he walked past the team bench and directly to the dressing room, bypassing his usual seat alongside teammates. Inter Miami’s own match recap made no mention of the substitution.

Argentina placed him on an individual program at the squad’s training base, working separately from the other 25 players on the final 26-man roster. He will miss both pre-tournament warmup matches, against Honduras on June 6 and Iceland on June 9. Six players in the squad are managing physical issues, Argentina’s medical staff confirmed; the most alarming pre-tournament case belonged to Cristian Romero, who is carrying a high-grade partial tear of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee.

The initial updates aren’t entirely bad. Now, we must wait to see how he evolves, pending the results of further tests to see if they confirm the initial medical reports.

Scaloni offered this to DSports in the days after the Philadelphia exit. The program proceeds on a day-by-day assessment, with no fixed timetable for full group integration. Messi turns 39 on June 24, between Argentina’s second and third group-stage fixtures, which means the tournament itself will carry part of the conditioning the pre-tournament camp could not complete.

The two warmup matches against Honduras and Iceland were the planned preparation route to the group opener. With Messi absent from both, Argentina arrives without having seen its full first XI in live match conditions, and without a firm read on how the captain’s fitness will translate from individual sessions to competitive football.

MLS Numbers and the European-Level Question

Before the Philadelphia exit, Messi’s 2026 MLS campaign read well enough. He scored 11 goals and added four assists in 12 appearances for Inter Miami, missing just one club match. He and Rodrigo De Paul, his club and national teammate, started double training sessions on top of the squad’s regular schedule in late February.

“Between two and three months ago, we have had a training plan beyond what we do at the club and the two of us kill ourselves to reach the best physical shape,” De Paul told the Lo del Pollo podcast. “We proposed a double shift for ourselves and we have our trainer there and we give it our all.”

• 11 goals, 4 assists in 12 MLS appearances before the Philadelphia injury
• One missed match in the full 2026 MLS campaign prior to the exit
• Double daily sessions with De Paul added for roughly 12 weeks ahead of the tournament
• A record sixth World Cup appearance for any Argentine player

The numbers are solid. The competition level behind them is harder to calibrate. In the six months before Qatar 2022, Messi played 13 Ligue 1 matches and five Champions League games for Paris Saint-Germain, facing European knockout opponents at the highest level. His preparation for this tournament included 14 MLS matches and two Concacaf Champions Cup fixtures. In the group stage against Algeria and Jordan, the gap is unlikely to show. Knockout opponents will press harder and close space faster than anything the MLS spring produced.

He won the Golden Ball at both the 2014 and 2022 World Cups, the only player in the tournament’s history to collect the individual award twice. At 35 in Qatar, he scored seven goals and provided three assists across seven matches.

No Argentine Has Won It Twice

Across the full history of the World Cup, only 21 players have ever won the tournament more than once. Most came from Italy’s consecutive titles in 1934 and 1938 or from Brazil’s back-to-back victories in 1958 and 1962. One Argentine, Daniel Passarella, who captained the 1978 squad, collected a second winner’s medal in 1986 under Carlos Bilardo. Beyond him, the record is empty. No Argentine captain has won it twice. Maradona reached back-to-back finals but lost the second 1-0 in Rome.

Maradona came closest to changing that. He led Argentina into Italia 1990 as defending champions at 29, carrying an ankle injury that limited him throughout. By the standard of 1986, when his performances against England and Belgium stood at his career peak, the 1990 version was diminished. Argentina lost their group-stage opener to Cameroon and scraped through in third place. His dribble through Brazil’s midfield in the round of 16, releasing Claudio Caniggia for the only goal, was the tournament’s standout moment. Andreas Brehme’s penalty ended the final 1-0. At the whistle, he burst into tears, having been man-marked by Guido Buchwald for most of the game.

Willpower and individual moments got Argentina to a second consecutive final; the side reached Rome having also lost its first-choice goalkeeper Nery Pumpido to a broken leg in the group stage. It was not enough. Messi enters with a collective that has won two Copa Américas and a World Cup across the past four years, and that topped CONMEBOL qualifying, beating Brazil both home and away.

Group J and the Path North

Argentina’s group draw gave them about as much room as a defending champion could realistically ask for. The opener lands in Kansas City on June 16, with Austria and Jordan to follow in Dallas. Argentina are ranked third in the current FIFA world rankings after holding the top spot for much of the post-Qatar period.

• Algeria, June 16 in Kansas City: group opener and first competitive test of Messi’s fitness
• Austria in Dallas: the group’s European representative, stronger than Algeria but not a title contender
• Jordan in Dallas: first-ever World Cup appearance, no prior tournament data available

Argentina are chasing a feat only Italy and Brazil have achieved: winning the World Cup in consecutive editions. Brazil managed it in 1958 and 1962; Italy in 1934 and 1938. No team has successfully defended since. Three of the last four defending champions were eliminated in the group stage: Italy in 2010, Spain in 2014, and Germany in 2018. France broke that pattern by reaching the 2022 final as the 2018 holders. The coaching staff has not publicly committed to a Messi workload plan for the group stage; the favorable draw gives them room to bring the captain through the first fixtures on a managed schedule, building toward whatever physical shape the recovery delivers by the third match.

The Squad Around Him

The squad retained 17 of 26 players from the Qatar 2022 title-winning core, the collective that has since added two Copa Américas to the group’s resume. The 2014 Argentina side needed Messi to carry three consecutive knockout wins almost unaided before losing the final to Germany. This squad has the depth to manage stretches of a match without the captain operating at full capacity.

The Midfield Engine

Julián Álvarez, now at Atlético Madrid under Diego Simeone, scored in the Qatar 2022 final and has since become Argentina’s most reliable striker in European football. Alexis Mac Allister brings two Liverpool seasons to the tournament and operates as the squad’s most consistent ball progressor from midfield. Enzo Fernández is the Chelsea midfielder the coaching staff trusts most in knockout situations. Together, De Paul, Mac Allister, and Fernández have covered the ground that allows Messi to operate in half-spaces, picking moments rather than running them.

Argentina’s 4-3-3 allows Messi to drift wide and collect the ball rather than pressing high or tracking back. The midfield covers ground; the captain finds the pockets. That balance became the squad’s defining shape through the Qatar knockout rounds and the template the coaching staff will repeat in North America, assuming the captain can reach full match fitness.

Depth Beyond the Qatar Core

The hardest selection call was Franco Mastantuono, the 17-year-old Real Madrid midfielder who generated the most attention in Argentine media before the final squad announcement. His omission favored the group’s experience over its potential. Ángel Di María, who retired from international football after Qatar, is absent; Giuliano Simeone, the Atlético Madrid forward, and Thiago Almada compete for the wide-forward slots Di María held for years.

Among the fresh additions are Nico Paz, the Como midfielder who was one of Argentina’s most consistent young performers in qualifying, and Valentín Barco, the Strasbourg left back. Both are under 22. Their presence gives the squad vertical energy in areas where the Qatar-era veterans have naturally declined.

Two Copa Américas and a World Cup with this core group in four years. What the coaching staff cannot schedule or drill is the physical condition of a 38-year-old in the two weeks before the biggest tournament of his career.

Scaloni gets his answer on June 16.