Argentina national football team players: the squad after Messi’s farewell, and the eight debutants
Argentina won three home friendlies 14-0 in the window that ended with Lionel Messi’s farewell, and handed eight players their first caps. Here is the squad with every cap, goal and club, who is suspended, and what comes next.
Jul 6, 2026 · Updated Oct 16, 2026
The Argentina national football team players Lionel Scaloni will build on are no longer a guess. Across three home friendlies between 30 September and 6 October he called up 34 players and used 32 of them, gave first caps to eight, and won all three games by a combined 14-0. The last of them was Lionel Messi’s farewell. Here is the squad as it stands after that window, every cap and goal brought up to date, and what comes next.
Argentina’s current squad
These are the 32 active players from the September and October squad, with caps and goals after the Benin game. Messi and Nicolás Otamendi were also in the group for the farewell and are not listed, because both have now retired from international football.
| Player | Pos | Club | Caps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emiliano Martínez | GK | Chelsea | 70 | 0 |
| Gerónimo Rulli | GK | Manchester City | 9 | 0 |
| Juan Musso | GK | Atlético Madrid | 4 | 0 |
| Santiago Beltrán | GK | River Plate | 1 | 0 |
| Nicolás Tagliafico | DF | Lyon | 84 | 1 |
| Cristian Romero | DF | Atlético Madrid | 61 | 5 |
| Lisandro Martínez | DF | Manchester United | 38 | 2 |
| Facundo Medina | DF | Bayer Leverkusen | 16 | 0 |
| Leonardo Balerdi | DF | Roma | 13 | 0 |
| Agustín Giay | DF | Palmeiras | 6 | 0 |
| Román Vega | DF | Zenit | 1 | 0 |
| Tomás Palacios | DF | Estudiantes | 1 | 0 |
| Valentín Gómez | DF | Real Betis | 1 | 0 |
| Rodrigo De Paul | MF | Inter Miami | 95 | 2 |
| Giovani Lo Celso | MF | Real Betis | 69 | 5 |
| Alexis Mac Allister | MF | Liverpool | 57 | 7 |
| Enzo Fernández | MF | Manchester City | 51 | 8 |
| Exequiel Palacios | MF | Ipswich Town | 44 | 0 |
| Nico Paz | MF | Como | 14 | 4 |
| Valentín Barco | MF | Chelsea | 7 | 2 |
| Equi Fernández | MF | Bayer Leverkusen | 1 | 0 |
| Santiago Simón | MF | Toluca | 1 | 0 |
| Lautaro Martínez | FW | Inter Milan | 87 | 42 |
| Julián Álvarez | FW | Atlético Madrid | 62 | 16 |
| Nico González | FW | Juventus | 60 | 6 |
| Giuliano Simeone | FW | Atlético Madrid | 17 | 3 |
| José Manuel López | FW | Palmeiras | 8 | 1 |
| Franco Mastantuono | FW | Fiorentina | 7 | 1 |
| Gianluca Prestianni | FW | Benfica | 3 | 1 |
| Leonel Flores | FW | Boca Juniors | 3 | 0 |
| Matías Soulé | FW | Roma | 1 | 0 |
| Santiago Castro | FW | Roma | 1 | 0 |
Rodrigo De Paul, on 95 caps, is the most experienced player left, with Nicolás Tagliafico on 84 and Emiliano Martínez on 70. Lautaro Martínez’s 42 goals are more than the next three scorers in the group manage together.
How did Argentina do in the September and October friendlies?
They won 4-0, 7-0 and 3-0 and did not concede. Ten different Argentina players scored the 13 goals that were not own goals, and Nico Paz was the only one to score in all three matches.
| Date | Opponent | Venue | Score | Argentina scorers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Sep | Bolivia | Kempes, Córdoba | 4-0 | Lautaro Martínez, Paz, Romero, López |
| 3 Oct | Burkina Faso | Monumental, Buenos Aires | 7-0 | Lautaro Martínez, Prestianni, Paz, Álvarez, Mastantuono, Simeone, own goal |
| 6 Oct | Benin | Monumental, Buenos Aires | 3-0 | Otamendi, Paz, Messi (pen) |
The results matter less than the names on the scoresheet. Paz arrived with one goal in 11 caps and left with four in 14. Lautaro’s two took him to 42 and past Sergio Agüero’s 41, which makes him Argentina’s third-highest scorer of all time, behind Messi and Gabriel Batistuta’s 56. Burkina Faso was the biggest win of the three, and the 20-year-old Gianluca Prestianni scored his first goal for his country in it.
Messi’s last match for Argentina
Messi had announced his international retirement on 31 August, and the Benin match at the Monumental was arranged so that he could say goodbye at home. He played the full 90 minutes with the armband in front of a crowd of more than 80,000. After a goalless first half he set up Otamendi from close range three minutes after the restart, laid on Paz’s strike from outside the box in the 61st minute, and put away a penalty in the 71st.
That penalty closed his Argentina record at 126 goals in 208 matches, both national records. Otamendi, who had retired straight after the World Cup final, came back for one night and scored on his 140th and last appearance. We covered the farewell and the 21-year career behind it, and every one of his 126 international goals is listed separately.
Who made their Argentina debut?
Eight players won their first caps, five against Bolivia and three against Burkina Faso. That takes the number of players Scaloni has handed a debut since 2018 to 73.
- Against Bolivia: Román Vega (Zenit), Equi Fernández (Bayer Leverkusen), Santiago Simón (Toluca), Valentín Gómez (Real Betis) and Leonel Flores (Boca Juniors)
- Against Burkina Faso: Matías Soulé and Santiago Castro (both Roma) and Tomás Palacios (Estudiantes)
That is a lot of new faces for three friendlies, and it looks deliberate. Vega started at left-back in Córdoba. Flores, a 19-year-old forward, went on to play in all three games. The other names to note are the ones Scaloni kept coming back to: Agustín Giay played every match at right-back, and Franco Mastantuono came off the bench in all three and scored against Burkina Faso.
Of the 26 players who went to the World Cup, 21 were in this squad. The five who were not are Nahuel Molina and Leandro Paredes, who are suspended, Thiago Almada, who withdrew injured, and Gonzalo Montiel and Marcos Senesi, who were not called up.
Which Argentina players are suspended?
Paredes and Molina, both over the brawl after the World Cup final. FIFA’s disciplinary committee banned Paredes for ten matches and Molina for seven in August, and fined each of them USD 90,000. FIFA then agreed to an AFA request that Class A friendlies count towards the bans as well as competitive matches.
The three games in this window were played as Class A friendlies, so if the bans stand, Paredes has seven matches left to serve and Molina four. Neither can play in November, and Paredes, who is 32, would still have five matches left after it. The AFA has asked FIFA’s Appeal Committee to cut his ban to three matches, which would free him for November, and that ruling was still pending at the end of September.
Who is Argentina’s captain now?
Cristian Romero. He was third in line behind Messi and Otamendi, so their retirements moved him to the front. Messi still wore the armband one last time for the farewell. Romero also scored against Bolivia, a header from a Paz cross, and has 61 caps and five goals.
Where do Argentina’s players play now?
Serie A has caught the Premier League. Each now supplies seven of the 32, with LaLiga next on six. Roma have three, Balerdi plus the two debutants Soulé and Castro, and Atlético Madrid still have the most of any club with four. Among the 26 who went to the World Cup the split was eight Premier League players to four in Serie A.
| League | Players |
|---|---|
| Premier League | 7 |
| Serie A | 7 |
| LaLiga | 6 |
| Argentine Primera | 3 |
| Brasileirão | 2 |
| Bundesliga | 2 |
| Liga MX, Ligue 1, MLS, Primeira Liga, Russian Premier League | 1 each |
Who are Argentina’s key players without Messi?
Lautaro Martínez inherits the goals. He is 29, he has 42 for his country, and he scored in both of the first two friendlies. Julián Álvarez, with 16, started all three friendlies alongside him.
On this evidence Paz is the obvious candidate for the No. 10 shirt. He is 22, plays for Como in Serie A, and three of his four international goals came in this window. Enzo Fernández and Alexis Mac Allister remain the midfield, and Romero and Lisandro Martínez the centre-backs in front of Emiliano Martínez, who started all three friendlies.
Who is Argentina’s coach and when do they play next?
Scaloni has had the job since 2018 and won the 2021 Copa América, the 2022 World Cup and the 2024 Copa América with it. His contract runs to the end of 2026. The AFA confirmed on 25 September that president Claudio Tapia had begun talks with him about an extension, and no new deal had been announced as of 16 October.
Argentina play two more friendlies in the November window, against Uruguay in Buenos Aires and then Costa Rica in Córdoba on 17 November. A planned tour of Asia was cancelled. They will be the last two matches of Scaloni’s current contract.
How did Argentina do at the 2026 World Cup?
They won seven in a row and lost the last one. Group J went 3-0 against Algeria, 2-0 against Austria and 3-1 against Jordan, then Cape Verde were beaten 3-2 in extra time, Egypt 3-2 and Switzerland 3-1 after extra time. Enzo and Lautaro scored late to beat England 2-1 in the semi-final in Atlanta. The final against Spain in New Jersey went the other way: Enzo was sent off and Ferran Torres scored in the 106th minute to win it 1-0.
Argentina are three-time world champions, from 1978, 1986 and 2022, and they won the Copa América in 2021 and 2024. For the rival that beat them, see the Spain squad, and for the other current squads, Brazil, Portugal and India. The wider argument about Messi’s place in the game is on our Messi vs Ronaldo stats page and in who the King of Football really is.