{"id":574893,"date":"2026-04-01T09:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/574893\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T09:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:57:09","slug":"lionel-messi-hits-goal-scoring-milestone-in-emotional-argentina-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/574893\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi hits goal scoring milestone in emotional Argentina win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/lionel-messi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lionel Messi<\/a> made his likely last-ever home game with Argentina one to remember on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/inter-miami-cf\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Inter Miami CF<\/a>\u2019s legendary No. 10 scored a spectacular goal as the reigning World Cup champions crushed Zambia, 5-0, in their final home appearance before defending their title at this summer\u2019s 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/fifa-world-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FIFA World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n      Historic goal<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to his 43rd-minute give-and-go stunner, Messi has now\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/brfootball\/status\/2039135936231928056\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">scored against 40 different countries<\/a> with Argentina, for 117 national team goals.<\/p>\n<p>In total, he has 902 tallies for club and country, hitting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/concacaf-champions-cup\/news\/lionel-messi-inter-miami-scores-career-goal-900\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">900-goal milestone<\/a>\u00a0earlier this month in action with Miami.<\/p>\n<p>\n      Argentina farewell?<\/p>\n<p>This latest achievement came on a special night for the eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Messi\u2019s appearance at La Bombonera was likely his last with Argentina on home soil. The 38-year-old is expected to retire from the national team after the World Cup, although he\u2019s yet to guarantee his presence at the competition this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Emotions ran high as Messi delivered another vintage performance, scoring a trademark golazo and helping to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CrewsMat10\/status\/2039154003653603453\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">set up<\/a> Valent\u00edn Barco\u2019s second-half stoppage-time strike that capped a bittersweet night for the GOAT.<\/p>\n<p>\n      Nu Stadium debut<\/p>\n<p>Messi\u2019s last home game with Argentina comes days before he\u2019s set to play his first-ever game at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/nu-stadium-timeline-inter-miami-s-road-to-new-venue\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nu Stadium<\/a>, Inter Miami\u2019s new 26,700-seat soccer-specific venue.<\/p>\n<p>The Herons will welcome <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/austin-fc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Austin FC<\/a> for Saturday\u2019s historic game\u00a0 (7:30 pm ET | <a href=\"https:\/\/soc.cr\/3PGUYLj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Apple TV<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi made his likely last-ever home game with Argentina one to remember on Tuesday. Inter Miami CF\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,567,10884,59211,24855,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-574893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-inter-miami-cf","11":"tag-lionel-messi","12":"tag-match-reaction","13":"tag-sendtonews","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}