The 38-year-old scored twice in a 3-0 victory over Venezuela in their last home fixture of the qualifying campaign, having already qualified for next summer\u2019s tournament in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to finish this way here is what I\u2019ve always dreamed of,\u201d Messi told Argentinian television channel TyC Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve experienced a lot of things on this pitch, both good and not so good, but it\u2019s always a joy to play in Argentina, in front of our fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of being present in America for the team\u2019s defence of their title Messi added: \u201cSame as I said before about the World Cup that I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll play another. Because of my age, the most logical thing is that I won\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut well, we\u2019re almost there so I\u2019m excited and motivated to play it. Like I always say, I go day by day, match by match, trying to feel good and above all, being honest with myself.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen I feel good, I enjoy it, but when I don\u2019t, honestly, I don\u2019t have a good time, so I prefer not to be there if I don\u2019t feel good. So we\u2019ll see. I haven\u2019t made a decision about the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll finish the season, then I\u2019ll have pre-season, and there will be six months left. So we\u2019ll see how I feel.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully I\u2019ll have a good pre-season in 2026, finish this MLS season well and then I\u2019ll decide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messi\u2019s goals came either side of a 76th-minute Lautaro Martinez header and only an offside flag denied the Inter Miami man a late hat-trick.<\/p>\n
Defeat for Venezuela confirmed the Marcelo Bielsa-coached Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay joined Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador as the automatic qualifiers from South America.<\/p>\n
Colombia \u2013 for whom the 34-year-old James Rodriguez scored to become the country\u2019s top scorer in World Cup qualifiers with 14 \u2013 and Uruguay marked their qualifications with 3-0 wins over Bolivia and Peru respectively, while Paraguay and Ecuador drew 0-0. Brazil beat Chile 3-0 in the night\u2019s other match.<\/p>\n
Venezuela have a one-point lead over Bolivia with one match remaining in the fight for a play-off spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 38-year-old scored twice in a 3-0 victory over Venezuela in their last home fixture of the qualifying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}