ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Teenager Justin Ellis scored the only goal on Tuesday as the United States completed a successful international window with a 1-0 victory over Canada.
It was the fourth victory in four friendlies for the U.S., which used the window to get a longer look at several young players who could play a role in the program’s future. The U.S. starting lineup on Tuesday had an average of just 21 caps and the average age was 23 years, 156 days.
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United States' George Campbell (18) and Canada's Tani Oluwaseyi (12) battle for possession of the ball during the first half of an international friendly soccer match Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
United States goalkeeper Brian Schwake (28) celebrates after defeating Canada during an international friendly soccer match Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
United States' Justin Ellis (22) celebrates toward teammate Alex Freeman (16) after scoring a goal during the first half of an international friendly soccer match against Canada Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Canada's Jonathan David (10) battles for possession of the ball against United States' Brooklyn Raines (15) and Chris Richards (3) during the first half of an international friendly soccer match Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
United States' Justin Ellis (22) scores a goal during the first half of an international friendly soccer match against Canada Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
“They seemed pretty comfortable from the beginning because they all knew each other,” U.S. defender Chris Richards said of the 13 players who earned their first international caps over the past four matches. “It's been a lot of fun getting to know everyone, and not just on the field.”
Ellis, a 19-year-old forward who plays professionally for Orlando of Major League Soccer, put the U.S. on the board in the 29th minute. A give-and-go between Alex Freeman and Malik Tillman created space down the right side before Freeman threw a cross in front of the net that Ellis tapped in for his second goal in three national team appearances.
Just 10 minutes earlier, Ellis — who also scored the opening goal in a victory over Peru on Sept. 26 — was on the ground after a hard foul. He received treatment on the sideline but was still limping when he returned to the field shortly before he scored.
Canada is looking to build on its success after appearing in back-to-back World Cups for the first time. Earlier in this international window, the Canadians beat Chile 2-1 in Toronto and blanked Peru 2-0 in Montreal.
Meanwhile, in the last 10 days the U.S. beat Chile, Peru and Mexico by a combined total of 11-3.
“The effort was massive,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said. “We played four games in two weeks, and to play with the same intensity, the same commitment, the same passion is not easy.
“I’m not happy because we won. I’m happy because of the performance and the commitment that the players showed.”
Pochettino made six changes from the starting lineup in Friday’s 3-0 win over Mexico in Glendale, Arizona. Seventeen-year-old phenom Cavan Sullivan, who became the youngest player to score for the Americans in that game, did not play against Canada.
Brian Schwake, who starts for Nashville, earned the clean sheet in goal. Schwake made three saves in his first start and second appearance for the U.S.
Schwake’s biggest moment came in the 63rd minute when he tipped a close shot by Luc de Fougerolles off the crossbar.
The U.S. now has 18 wins, 12 losses and 13 draws across all competitions against Canada.
Both teams return to action in November in the CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinals. The U.S. will face Haiti while Canada squares off with Guatemala.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
United States' George Campbell (18) and Canada's Tani Oluwaseyi (12) battle for possession of the ball during the first half of an international friendly soccer match Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
United States goalkeeper Brian Schwake (28) celebrates after defeating Canada during an international friendly soccer match Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
United States' Justin Ellis (22) celebrates toward teammate Alex Freeman (16) after scoring a goal during the first half of an international friendly soccer match against Canada Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Canada's Jonathan David (10) battles for possession of the ball against United States' Brooklyn Raines (15) and Chris Richards (3) during the first half of an international friendly soccer match Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
United States' Justin Ellis (22) scores a goal during the first half of an international friendly soccer match against Canada Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina is confronting a once-unimaginable reality: a national team without soccer great Lionel Messi.
On Tuesday, 39-year-old Messi bid farewell to international soccer after 21 years, 126 goals, two Copa América titles and a World Cup championship, scoring a penalty and setting up Argentina’s other two goals for a 3-0 victory over Benin. What was otherwise an unremarkable friendly against the West African nation became a moment that this soccer-crazed country had long dreaded.
“It feels like an era is ending, knowing he won’t play for the national team anymore,” said Valentino Ruso, 17, who was heading to a friend’s house in Buenos Aires to watch the game. “I’m sad. I think everyone is upset today. He will be missed.”
Argentines had an intense, often unforgiving relationship with the shy boy who left his hometown of Rosario at 13 for the youth academy of Spanish club Barcelona. As he grew into a global icon of near-mythical stature, his compatriots adored and abused him, sometimes questioning his commitment to his home country and accusing him of indifference to it.
But by the time he ended his dazzling international career, his devotion to Argentina was no longer in question. Nor was Argentina’s devotion to its most famous export, whose triumphs reminded the country of its capacity for greatness through years of political and economic instability.
“Argentines often say, ‘Thank God I was born at a time when I could experience the miracle of watching Messi play,’” said Andrés Rabinovich, a University of Chicago scholar who has researched soccer’s role in Argentine culture. “It’s hard living in Argentina. Soccer is often one of the few things that offers you some respite, some joy.”
For years, Argentines had debated when and how Messi should leave the world stage. His Aug. 31 announcement that he’d be retiring from the national team, weeks after Argentina’s loss to Spain in the World Cup final, prompted an outpouring of gratitude and grief — even as Messi will continue to light up Major League Soccer with Inter Miami.
“I don’t know if there has ever been a love story between a player and a nation as great as the one you built,” his teammate Rodrigo De Paul wrote on Instagram.
The Argentine soccer federation turned Tuesday’s game — Messi’s 208th — into a national farewell billed as “the last tango.” More than 85,000 tickets to Buenos Aires’ largest stadium sold out in 90 minutes, seats that were originally priced around $60-$300 later fetching over $2,500 on resale sites. Players from Argentina’s 1978, 1986 and 2022 World Cup-winning squads returned to see him off.
After the final whistle, Messi’s eyes glistened as his teammates gathered around him, applauding. A rumbling chorus of “Olé, olé, olé, olé, Messi, Messi” rose from the stands as tens of thousands of fans jumped, sang and bowed toward him as if in worship. A banner at midfield proclaimed him the "Eternal Captain.”
“The truth is, I'm talking more than I ever have. I don't want to leave here, I don't want to leave this field,” Messi told the crowd, which roared as if he had scored. “I just want to tell you that I love you, I'm going to miss you, and I'm grateful to God to be Argentine."
During the 2000s and 2010s, Messi amassed trophies with his club and won diehard fans from Barcelona to Bangladesh. Yet a major championship for his own country eluded him.
Where the world saw a supernatural talent, some at home saw an outsider who had never played professionally in Argentina and seemed to buckle under the weight of their expectations. Argentine crowds chanted “Diego, Diego,” invoking Diego Maradona, the larger-than-life hero of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup victory, and reminding Messi of a standard he had yet to meet. Messi’s quiet reserve, so at odds with Maradona’s defiant swagger, fueled doubts about his patriotism.
After Argentina lost a third consecutive final in 2016, Messi briefly quit the national team.
“There’s some resentment by the people that stay in Argentina for those who leave, this sense of, ‘They think they’re better than us,’” said Rabinovich, adding that he identifies with Messi as a fellow teenage migrant. Rabinovich said he moved to Canada during Argentina's 2001 economic crisis, around the time Messi left for Europe. “The old-school Argentines would say, ‘Diego is the Argentine. Messi is soft, a little Spanish boy.’”
The turning point came in 2021, when Argentina beat Brazil to win the Copa América, South America’s championship, for the first time in 28 years. Messi collapsed to the turf as his teammates, delirious, ran to hug him. The player long accused of feeling too little could not stop sobbing.
“Winning clearly disarmed his critics. That’s how soccer works in Argentina,” said Diego Murzi, a sports sociologist at Conicet, Argentina’s national scientific research council. “Criticism of things off the field goes hand in hand with defeats on it.”
The World Cup victory the following year in Qatar sealed his place as a national hero. Messi had delivered the one prize that had eluded him, and millions of Argentines poured into the streets in collective ecstasy, his name in their chants and his No. 10 on their backs.
“I’ll never forget it. I’d never experienced anything like that, being out there with everyone, celebrating together,” said Antonia Correa, 70, a kiosk owner, recalling that day as she waited for a bus in Buenos Aires on Tuesday. “We saw that he wasn’t just an extraordinary player, but an excellent human being.”
In recent weeks, newspapers have hummed with nostalgic tributes and murals celebrating Messi have sprung up across the country. La Nación, a leading Argentine daily, released “Immortal,” a documentary chronicling his final World Cup run, and published a 196-page special edition devoted to his career. Since June, a 26-meter (85-foot) statue of Messi kneeling with the World Cup trophy has towered over passing motorists in Patagonia. On Tuesday, Buenos Aires’ landmark Obelisk glowed sky blue and white, the colors of the national flag, while news sites live-blogged every minute of the Benin friendly as if it were a World Cup final.
Across Argentina, fans who grew up watching Messi as their parents watched Maradona have covered their skin with tattooed tributes to the soccer great, portraits of him kissing the World Cup trophy. It was easy to believe the world’s greatest player would always be one of their own.
“I don’t think we’ll have somebody like him again, somebody with that sort of enduring power,” said Pablo Brescia, a University of South Florida professor who writes about Argentine culture and soccer. “Like Maradona, he’ll be unique — a figure that can’t be repeated.”
Messi’s contract with Inter Miami runs through the 2028 season. But the ritual of watching him carry Argentina’s hopes and anxieties into every match is over.
“Watching Messi play, you felt anything could happen,” Murzi said.
When Tuesday’s match finally ended, the crowd remained, their ovation roaring through the stadium. Messi took a final lap, a tiny figure beneath the lights, soaking it in. At the tunnel, he paused to lift his arms toward his fans one last time. Then he was gone.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here.
Street artist Claudio Pampillon finishes a chalk portrait of Lionel Messi on the pavement outside the stadium before Messi's final match with the national team, an international friendly against Benin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A drone display featuring Argentina's Lionel Messi is seen at the end of his final match for the national team, a soccer friendly against Benin, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Julian Bongiovanni)
Argentina's Lionel Messi celebrates scoring his side's third goal from the penalty spot during an international friendly soccer match against Benin, marking his farewell appearance for the national team, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
Argentina's Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring his side’s third goal from the penalty spot during his final match for the national team, a soccer friendly against Benin, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP/Photo/Gustavo Garello)
Fans hold masks depicting Lionel Messi before his final match for Argentina, a soccer friendly against Benin, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Argentina's Lionel Messi warms up before an international friendly soccer match against Benin, marking his farewell appearance for the national team, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
Argentina's Lionel Messi, left, and Lautaro Martinez warm up before an international friendly soccer match against Benin, marking his farewell appearance for the national team, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
Fans gather outside Monumental stadium before a soccer friendly between Argentina and Benin marking Lionel Messi's final appearance for the national team in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Fans hold masks depicting Lionel Messi before his final match for Argentina, a soccer friendly against Benin, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Argentina's Lionel Messi waves to fans before an international friendly soccer match against Benin, marking his farewell appearance for the national team, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct.6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
Argentina's Lionel Messi, center, trains for his final game with the national team, an international friendly soccer match against Benin, with teammate Rodrigo De Paul, right, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
Argentina's Lionel Messi trains for his final game with the national team, an international friendly soccer match against Benin, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
