Inter Miami will be the last club\u00a0Lionel Messi\u00a0plays for, the 36-year-old said on Wednesday, adding he feels \u201ca little bit scared\u201d at the thought of the day he decides to retire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Messi, who won the World Cup with Argentina in 2022, has a contract with the Major League Soccer side until 2025 after his arrival last summer after a spell with French champions PSG. He has\u00a0long been linked\u00a0to a return to his boyhood club Newell\u2019s Old Boys.\u00a0But Messi told ESPN\u00a0he will finish his career in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cInter Miami will be my last club. I love playing football. I enjoy everything even more because I am aware that there is less and less left,\u201d Messi said. \u201cI\u2019m not ready to leave football. I\u2019ve done this all my life, I love playing football, I enjoy training, the day-to-day, the matches \u2026 And yes, there\u2019s always a little bit of fear that it\u2019s all over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner Messi is preparing to defend the\u00a0Copa Am\u00e9rica\u00a0title with Argentina. The tournament kicks off on 20 June in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Messi also responded to Kylian Mbapp\u00e9\u2019s comments about the quality of the World Cup compared to the European Championships. \u201cEuro is a really difficult competition, probably more than the World Cup,\u201d Mbapp\u00e9 told L\u2019\u00c9quipe last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, everybody prioritizes their tournament,\u201d Messi said in response to the Frenchman\u2019s comments. \u201cObviously, the Euros is very important and has the best teams, but he\u2019s leaving out three-time champion\u00a0Argentina, five-time champion Brazil, two-time champion Uruguay. There are a lot of world champions left off to say that it\u2019s the most difficult tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe best teams play in the World Cup, which generally includes all the world champions. There\u2019s a reason everybody wants to be champions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Messi also said that his World Cup victory had helped put his career in perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe fact we won the World Cup helped, it helped a lot, to see things in another way. But I try not to think about it. I try to enjoy it. I do that more now because I\u2019m aware that there\u2019s not a lot of time left,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I have a good time with the club, being lucky having good teammates and friends at my side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Messi returned to the international stage for the first time in six months, helping Argentina to a 1-0 victory over Ecuador\u00a0in a Copa Am\u00e9rica warm-up match last week. He was on the bench for the first half before replacing \u00c1ngel Di Mar\u00eda in the 56th minute. A hamstring injury had kept the forward from participating in Argentina\u2019s previous two Copa Am\u00e9rica warm-up games against El Salvador and Costa Rica in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Argentina will take on Canada in Atlanta in the opening match before facing Group A rivals Chile on 25 June in New Jersey and Peru four days later in Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Inter Miami will be the last club\u00a0Lionel Messi\u00a0plays for, the 36-year-old said on Wednesday, adding he feels \u201ca little bit scared\u201d at the thought of the day he decides to retire. Messi, who won the World Cup with Argentina in 2022, has a contract with the Major League Soccer side until 2025 after his arrival […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[4173,6202,10808,11183,2422,1953,189,4096,6906,8582,4066,6303,2419,9505,8057,5247,6351,6225,7090,11294,10147,10954,1113,6220,8126,1273,6283,1993,2323,8878,642,5278,8443,10416,7333,5564,6348,10885,36,5248,594],"class_list":["post-42981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-argentina","tag-atlanta","tag-ballon-dor","tag-boys","tag-brazil","tag-canada","tag-chile","tag-costa-rica","tag-di-maria","tag-ecuador","tag-el","tag-el-salvador","tag-euro","tag-european","tag-fear","tag-football","tag-french","tag-friends","tag-games","tag-injury","tag-inter-miami","tag-international","tag-lionel-messi","tag-love","tag-match","tag-messi","tag-miami","tag-my-life","tag-new-jersey","tag-peru","tag-psg","tag-quality","tag-retirement","tag-soccer","tag-summer","tag-uruguay","tag-us","tag-victory","tag-world","tag-world-cup","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42983,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42981\/revisions\/42983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}