Lionel Messi will receive one of the biggest honors in the Argentina national team in early 2024.

The Argentina team’s number 10 shirt was declared by the president of the country’s Football Federation, Claudio Tapia, to permanently belong to Lionel Messi. Tapia’s announcement came on the last day of 2023, more than a year after the 2022 World Cup championship.

Messi, considered the greatest player in football history, won his dream title when he led Argentina to victory at the 2022 World Cup and ended his country’s 35-year wait for the world championship. . Messi thus completed his trophy collection with Argentina, he won every title with “La Albiceleste” including the World Cup, Copa America and Olympic gold medal.

Messi currently has 106 goals in 180 matches for Argentina and ranks with Diego Maradona as the country’s greatest player. But while Maradona did not have the honor of owning the famous number 10 shirt for many different reasons, Messi will be honored at the age of 36 and the number 10 shirt will be his and no one else’s.

President Tapia said: “When Messi retires from the national team, we will not let anyone else continue to wear the number 10 shirt. The shirt is and will forever be his, honoring a great career. Those are the few things we can do to thank Messi.”

There are debates about this issue because Maradona also won the World Cup like Messi and possesses the title of one of the two greatest players of the twentieth century. In fact, Maradona was given the number 10 shirt permanently at the end of 2001 to honor “El Diego”, but then the Argentine Football Federation brought this number back to use at the 2002 World Cup. The reason was because FIFA initially refused. Their shirt registration list left the number 10 shirt blank, leading the federation to choose to give the number 10 shirt to Ariel Ortega.

In the history of football, there have been many jerseys hung permanently at the national team/club level to honor important individuals or for special reasons (such as a player passing away while playing for the club). Each place has different contexts: Italian clubs have their jerseys permanently retired like Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini at AC Milan (Maldini said he would let his son wear number 3 if he played at AC Milan), Javier Zanetti at Inter or Francesco Totti at Roma, but La Liga does not allow this so Messi will not have that honor at Barcelona.