Is Lionel Messi Playing in the 2026 World Cup?

Messi, for his part, gave an interview to ESPN in December 2025 in which he addressed the possibility of playing in his sixth World Cup with the Argentina national team, a record in the competition's history.

The Argentine captain and 2022 World Cup champion spoke about his preparation ahead of the tournament in the country where he currently plays and maintained the cautious tone he has been keeping on the matter: "I'm going to take it day by day, being honest and trying to be realistic and feel good. This year I felt very good."

Messi's MLS Transition Introduces Different Considerations

In his conversation with ESPN, he highlighted a factor that could be very important for his participation, such as the MLS calendar and its differences compared to what he was used to in Europe: "Having a preseason in the middle, I think that changes everything for me. It's starting from scratch; for me personally, it's going to help me a lot."

Messi compared the lead-up to the next World Cup with the timing he managed before the previous one, which was held in the middle of the European season.

"The European players arrive with a huge number of games on their legs at the end, as is almost always the case in national team competitions, except for Qatar, which was in the middle of the year, and most of them also felt better because they had less of a game load. Something similar is going to happen to me," Messi said.

"For us, it comes at a different point in the season than for the Europeans. We're going to start an intense preseason in January and will have a lot of consecutive games with the league and the Concacaf Champions Cup," added the Rosario native.

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Messi also spoke about the conversations he has with head coach Lionel Scaloni about the role he could play in 2026: "The truth is, we've been talking about it. He understands it too, and we've talked about it a lot. We've been discussing it for a while, and he always tells me that, as far as he's concerned, he would like me to be there in whatever role fits or makes sense. We have a relationship of great trust and can talk about everything."

As for the rest of his campaign in the U.S. league -- in which his club Inter Miami will play the MLS Cup final against the Vancouver Whitecaps -- the soccer legend highlighted the competitive edge it offers.

"I've been lucky enough to play a huge number of games," Messi said. "People talk about the league being very physical; the opponents have grown a lot. There are a lot of long trips, games that are very back-and-forth and open. Honestly, I felt good, I enjoyed it, and hopefully the beginning of next year will be the same way."