Argentina retiring the No. 10 jersey? The idea is good, but the hope is slim

When Messi retires from the Argentine team, he may get an honor that Pele and Maradona have not won - according to the Spanish media "Marca", the president of the Argentine Football Association, Tapia, swore that the No. 10 jersey of the blue and white team will be retired from the Argentine national team with the departure of Messi, but the idea is very good, and the hope is very slim.

"We don't allow anyone to wear the number 10 shirt of the blue and white team after Messi. Tapia said: "For Messi's sake, we have to do this. ”

This is not the first time that the Argentine Football Federation has considered retiring the number 10 shirt, the last time was the 2002 World Cup, when it wanted to pay tribute to Maradona. The then president of the Argentine Football Federation, Grondona, even made an official announcement that in the final match against Peru in the 2002 World Preliminary Tournament, Ortega was considered the last Argentine player to wear the No. 10 jersey.

However, FIFA has regulations that the number of players participating in the tournament must be 1-23, and the subordinate member football associations can choose to retire a certain number, but it will be regarded as automatically giving up a registration place. Eventually, the Argentine Football Federation abandoned the plan.

At the end of 2022, when Pele died, Pele's family and the Brazilian media also called for the retirement of the No. 10 jersey, and the Brazilian Football Federation's reply was that under the current rules, it is unrealistic to retire the number from the national team, and FIFA and the continental football federation stipulate that the number of the jersey of the tournament cannot exceed the number of players, which is 1-26 during the epidemic, and gradually recovers to 1-23 this year. Although France and Iran did not fill the 26-man quota for the 2022 World Cup, this is a voluntary abandonment and has nothing to do with the retirement of the jersey number.

There is little domestic reaction to the retirement of the No. 10 jersey in Argentina, after all, Messi will at least finish this year's Copa America, and, under the persuasion of all walks of life, there is a high probability that he will participate in the 2026 World Cup. Even if the No. 10 jersey is retired, it will be six months later at the earliest.

At present, the Argentine Football Federation is trying to lobby FIFA President Gianni Infantino to open the net, revise the current rules for the number of players in the competition, and relax the restrictions based on the number of applicants, but whether FIFA is willing to "do special things" has to be marked with a big question mark.

In the national team, only Liberia has retired the number 14 of the legendary superstar Weah. In September 2018, the Liberian Football Federation took the opportunity to announce the retirement of his number 14 shirt when then-Liberian President Weah played in the warm-up match against Nigeria. However, Liberia, which has never qualified for the World Cup finals and only reached the Africa Cup of Nations finals twice in 1996 and 2002, has little impact on the lack of one player in official competitions.

However, in the club world, it is a common tribute tradition to retire the shirt number for a legendary footballer.

On October 1, 1977, the New York Universe retired Pele's No. 10 shirt for the first time in history, and in 2000, Napoli retired Maradona's No. 10 shirt, along with No. 01 (Seni Sao Paulo), No. 3 (Facchetti Inter, Maldini Milan), No. 4 (Zanetti Inter), No. 6 (Bobby Moore - West Ham United, Baresi Milan), No. 10 (Totti-Roma, Baggio Brescia), No. 11 (Riva Cagliari), No. 13 (Xu Yunlong - Beijing Guoan), No. 14 (Cruyff-Ajax), No. 18 (Chengdu Sheffield United - Yao Xia), No. 20 (Li Tongguo - Jeonbuk Hyundai).

In addition, No. 21 (Halque-Espanyol), No. 23 (Vivian Fort - Manchester City), No. 24 (Tiot-Beijing Beikong), No. 26 (Zhang Yalin-Dalian Shide), The No.29 (Fehr Benfica) is a memorial due to the death of the owner of their respective numbers, while the Championship side Birmingham City retired the No.22 shirt as a tribute to the club's youth academy rookie Bellingham, who now plays for Real Madrid and is the youngest player to retire the shirt number, and the No. 12 retired by Turkey's Valley City Club to pay tribute to the founder behind the club and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.