(Miami) Argentine superstar Lionel Messi confirmed in an interview with the American channel ESPN that he would not try to win a second gold medal with the Argentine football team at the Paris Olympic Games this summer.
“I spoke with (Argentine Espoirs coach Javier) Mascherano, and we immediately agreed on the situation,” he said in this interview broadcast on Wednesday.
“It’s a difficult moment, because there is the Copa America, and that would mean two or three consecutive months away from my club (Miami, Editor’s note). At my age, I don’t want to play everything, and I have to make the right choices,” continued the former star of FC Barcelona and Paris SG.
Messi, who turns 37 on June 24, is expected to join defending champion Argentina as the big star of the Copa America, which runs from June 20 to July 14 in the United States, just weeks before the start of the Olympic Games (July 26–August 11).
Lionel Messi was part of the Argentina team crowned Olympic champions in 2008.
And if it is not this year of the Olympic celebration, it has not closed the door to participation in the next World Cup, organized in 2026 between the United States, Canada and Mexico. He would then become the player having taken part in the greatest number of editions of the competition (6).
“It’s great to have records and to continue to achieve things, but I will not participate in a World Cup just to say that I have made six,” Messi insisted. “If I feel good and everything is in place for me to be there, great, but I’m not going to go just to go.”
“But it’s very difficult to imagine what can happen, because it’s still two years away. I don’t need to commit right now to whether or not I’ll be there,” he concluded.