Messi vs Ronaldo: The Last Chapter

2026 World Cup will likely be their last. Ronaldo just turned 41 and Messi is 38 yet they're still out there playing. Well honestly, most football players are long retired by that age.

Now Ronaldo's in Saudi Arabia and has got 24 goals in 25 games this season. He says he won't retire until he hits 1000 career goals and honestly I believe him. At 41 most guys his age are doing punditry on TV or playing golf. Not Ronaldo. The guy is still leading the scoring charts and just doesn't stop. He's got 24 goals in a league and Al-Nassr are top of the table, still in the AFC Champions League.

Messi is in Miami now. He won the MLS Cup in 2025 and in March he scored his 900th career goal. His coach Scaloni basically begged him to come to the World Cup, went to the press and everything. He said something like "for the good of soccer he has to be there." That's your national team coach going to the press to beg his own player. Says a lot.

And by the way Messi got visibly emotional after Argentina's last home friendly and some people took that as his goodbye to Buenos Aires in an Argentina shirt. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Who knows. But it felt like something.

Adidas already dropped his boots for this summer and called them El Ultimo Tango which means "The Last Tango". Well now draw your own conclusions.

The thing is that these two have played 36 matches against each other over almost 20 years and they've scored 22 and 21 against each other. So, a difference of just one goal over two decades. And yet in all these World Cups, they have never played each other as national teams. Not once. This summer, at the 48-team tournament, that could really change.

First time they ever played with each other was April 2008 when Messi was 20 years old and Ronaldo 23. It was Champions League semifinal, Manchester United vs Barcelona. Nobody watching that game knew what they were actually witnessing. Between them at that point they had zero Ballon d'Ors. Zero. They now have 13.

Both teams are real contenders and are here to win. Portugal has Bruno Fernandes, Leão and Bernardo Silva while Argentina, which is the reigning champion by the way, still has Alvarez, De Paul and Enzo. So, a semifinal or final between them isn't so unlikely to imagine. And if that actually happens, you're looking at the most watched sporting moment in years. One of them lifting the trophy, the other one watching. Just let that sit.

Ronaldo confirmed this is his last World Cup, his sixth overall. 2006 was his first, twenty years ago. Some of the guys playing this summer were literally in diapers back then.

Messi was coy about it, anyway, we all know he's leaving. And they truly respect each other though people keep on forgetting that part as their rivalry was intense. These players truly pushed each other to levels they probably never reached without each other. 13 Ballon d'Or between two players from the same era. That's just not normal.

One last thing worth saying. The World Cup is brutal and unpredictable. Either of them could go out in the quarters, one bad game and it's over. One bad tackle and the last dance ends in a physio room. Nobody's guaranteed anything. But even if that happens, even if neither of them makes the final, this is still the farewell tour. You watch every game knowing it's probably the last time.

June 11 is when it all starts. And by July 19 we'll know.