Lionel Messi Age 2026: How Old Is Messi Now at 39?

Last updated: October 31, 2026  ·  By Nathan Cole

Lionel Messi is 39 years old in 2026. He was born on June 24, 1987, in Rosario, Argentina, turned 39 on June 24, 2026, and is still deciding football matches at an age when almost every outfield player of his generation has retired. His 39th year has been one of the busiest of his life: a World Cup final with Argentina, a fifth-place Ballon d’Or finish, a major Spanish honour, and a farewell to international football — all while captaining Inter Miami through an MLS playoff race.

The number itself causes confusion. Some pages still list him as 38, and older ones as 37. Both are stale. The arithmetic is simple: 2026 minus 1987 is 39, and his birthday fell in June, before the World Cup, before the Ballon d’Or ceremony, and before the October matches covered below. This article gives the full picture behind the number: the Rosario childhood, the Barcelona move at 13, the debut at 17, the trophies, the family, the money at 39, and what his contract to 2028 means for the 40th birthday.

The Short Answer: 39, and Still Deciding Games

Lionel Messi turned 39 on June 24, 2026, three weeks before captaining Argentina into the World Cup final. He is 39 for the rest of 2026 and turns 40 on June 24, 2027. He stands 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in), plays as a forward, and captains Inter Miami, where his contract runs through the 2028 MLS season.

Age 39 has not slowed the output. In the 2026 MLS regular season he recorded 25 goals and 15 assists in 27 appearances, per Pasión Fútbol’s October 26, 2026 tally. At the World Cup he scored eight goals and added four assists across the tournament, the most productive World Cup campaign of his career, according to Sports Illustrated’s final review. The final itself went against him — Spain won 1–0 in extra time — but the tournament numbers sit alongside anything he produced in his twenties.

The year also closed a chapter. On August 31, 2026, Messi announced his retirement from the Argentina national team, per Yardbarker’s September 1, 2026 report, and he played his final game for his country in October 2026, finishing with 126 goals in 208 appearances, per ESPN. He has not retired from club football. The distinction matters: the 39-year-old still has an Inter Miami contract, a playoff race, and a 40th birthday to play toward.

How Old Is Messi, Exactly?

Messi was born on June 24, 1987. Subtract 1987 from 2026 and the answer is 39. Because his birthday falls in June, he spent the first half of 2026 aged 38 and the second half aged 39. Every major event of his 2026 — the World Cup in June and July, the retirement announcement on August 31, the Ballon d’Or ceremony on October 26 — happened after his birthday, so every 2026 report that calls him 39 is correct.

The stale figures have a simple explanation. A page last updated in 2025 says 38. A page last updated in 2024 says 37. Search results that scrape old infoboxes or old article text keep circulating those numbers long after the birthday has passed. Britannica’s facts page, last updated October 26, 2026, lists him as born June 24, 1987, age 39, and Wikipedia’s infobox carries the same date and age. If a page says 38 in late 2026, it has not been updated since June.

One more confusion is worth clearing up. Some readers mix up Messi’s age with his shirt number or his trophy count. He wears number 10 for Inter Miami and Argentina, and he has won the Ballon d’Or eight times. Neither number is his age. His age is 39, his number is 10, and his Ballon d’Or count is eight.

Early Life in Rosario: Grandoli, Newell’s, and a Diagnosis at 10

Messi was born in Rosario, the largest city in Argentina’s Santa Fe province, as the third of four children of Jorge Messi, a steel factory manager, and Celia Cuccittini, who worked in a magnet manufacturing workshop. He started playing organised football at four, joining Grandoli, a local club coached by his father. At six or seven he moved to Newell’s Old Boys, the Rosario professional club, where he joined the youth side known as “La Máquina del ’87” — the Machine of ’87 — named for the players’ birth year. Reports from his Newell’s years credit him with nearly 500 youth goals.

At 10, doctors diagnosed him with a growth hormone deficiency. The treatment cost at least $1,000 per month, and his father’s health insurance covered only two years of it. Newell’s first agreed to help and then pulled back, and a move to Buenos Aires club River Plate stalled over the same money and over Newell’s refusal to release his player registration. Messi later said he injected his own legs every night, starting at 12, and continued the treatment until he was 14. At diagnosis he stood about 4 ft 2 in; as an adult he is 5 ft 7 in.

The diagnosis shaped the rest of the story. Without a club willing to pay for the treatment, the most talented child in Rosario had no route forward in Argentina. The club that finally paid was in Spain, and the price of that help was a move across the Atlantic at 13.

Barcelona at 13: The Napkin Contract

Messi travelled to Barcelona for a trial in September 2000, aged 13. He was, by the accounts of the time, barely 4 ft 10 in and slight even for his age. Barcelona’s directors hesitated, and the club’s then-director of football, Carles Rexach, settled the matter in the most famous way in football history: he wrote a commitment on a paper napkin on December 14, 2000, promising to sign the boy, with Barcelona covering the medical treatment.

He enrolled at La Masia, Barcelona’s youth academy, and his family moved with him. His mother and siblings later returned to Rosario, leaving Messi and his father in a small Barcelona apartment. He was not registered with the Spanish federation until February 2002, after paperwork delays, and he finished his growth hormone treatment at 14. From there the rise was fast: through the youth sides, into the B team, and then, at 16, into a first-team friendly.

The napkin story gets retold because it compresses the whole gamble into one object. A club paid a child’s medical bills on the strength of a trial, and the child became the club’s greatest player. Nothing about the 39-year-old’s career makes sense without that decision at 13.

Debut at 17 and Seventeen Years at Barcelona

Messi made his first-team debut in a friendly against Porto on November 16, 2003, aged 16 years and four months, coming on in the 75th minute. His competitive debut followed on October 16, 2004, against Espanyol in La Liga, at 17 years and 114 days, making him the third-youngest player to appear for Barcelona at the time. His first senior goal came later that season, against Albacete, in May 2005, when he was still 17.

What followed was 17 seasons in the first team, from 2004 to 2021, in which he scored 672 goals in 778 appearances, the club’s all-time scoring record. The trophy count from those years includes 10 La Liga titles and four UEFA Champions League titles, in 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2015. He won his first Ballon d’Or in 2009, at 22, and by the time he left he had won the award six times as a Barcelona player.

The Barcelona years also set the pattern of his ageing. He arrived as a dribbler who beat defenders with acceleration. He left as a playmaker who beat them with timing, dropping deeper, passing earlier, and shooting less often but from better positions. That shift — from speed to reading the game — is the reason a 39-year-old version of the same player still works.

Paris Saint-Germain: Two Seasons, Two Titles

Messi left Barcelona in August 2021, at 34, when the club could not register a new contract under La Liga’s financial rules. He joined Paris Saint-Germain on a two-year deal, reuniting with Neymar and playing alongside Kylian Mbappé. The move was emotional — he cried at his farewell press conference in Barcelona — and it was also practical: PSG offered Champions League football and a salary Barcelona could no longer match.

His two seasons in Paris brought two Ligue 1 titles, in 2022 and 2023, but no Champions League. The first season was an adjustment, with injuries and a new league; the second was far more productive. He left in the summer of 2023, aged 36, having won his seventh Ballon d’Or in 2021 and his eighth in 2023, the latter for captaining Argentina to the World Cup title in Qatar in December 2022. The Paris years are the least loved part of his career story, and also the bridge to the part that changed his sport’s geography.

Inter Miami: The Move at 36 That Changed MLS

Messi joined Inter Miami in July 2023, at 36, turning down a return to Barcelona and a far larger offer from Saudi Arabia. The deal was unlike any MLS contract before it: a playing salary plus a share of revenue from Apple’s MLS Season Pass subscriptions, a share of Adidas jersey sales, and an option to acquire an ownership stake in the club after he retires. Club owner Jorge Mas later said Messi’s total annual income in the United States runs to $70 million to $80 million across everything, far above his published MLS salary.

The effect on the league was immediate and measurable. Inter Miami’s valuation rose from about $600 million before his arrival to a reported peak near $1.35 billion, per Calciotech’s October 2026 business profile. Miami won the Leagues Cup within weeks of his arrival in 2023, and in 2025 the club won its first MLS Cup, which is why the Associated Press still describes Miami as the reigning MLS Cup champions in its October 2026 reporting. The 39-year-old captain is therefore defending a title, not chasing a first one, in the final weeks of 2026.

In October 2025 he signed an extension keeping him at the club through the end of the 2028 season. That date is the key to his age story: it means the contract outlasts his 40th birthday, and it answers the question of whether 39 is his final season. On paper, it is not. He will be 41 when the deal ends.

Argentina at 39: The 2026 World Cup Final Run

Messi’s sixth World Cup began a month before his 39th birthday and ended a month after it. Argentina entered as defending champions, and Messi played like a man determined to keep the trophy. He scored a hat-trick against Algeria, two against Austria, and one against Jordan in the group stage. In the knockouts he scored against Cape Verde, scored and assisted against Egypt in a 3–2 comeback from 2–0 down, set up a goal against Switzerland, and supplied two assists against England in the semifinal. His tournament total was eight goals and four assists, per Bleacher Report’s July 20, 2026 summary, and he finished second in the Golden Boot race.

The final, on July 19, 2026, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, broke the run. Spain, the European champions, controlled 65 percent of possession and outshot Argentina 20–2, per FotMob data cited by NBC Sports Boston. Argentina did not register a shot until the second half of extra time. Ferran Torres scored the winner in the 106th minute, after Enzo Fernández had been sent off, and Spain won 1–0. Messi, starved of service, saw his only late opening blocked, and his World Cup ended with a 6-out-of-10 player rating from OneFootball and tears on the turf.

The defeat echoed 2014, when Argentina lost the final 1–0 in extra time to Germany. Messi said afterward that the loss was part of his football journey, speaking at an event in Oviedo in October 2026. He had played, by then, in six World Cups across twenty years, from an 18-year-old substitute in Germany in 2006 to a 39-year-old captain in the United States in 2026. No outfield player in the sport’s history has stretched a World Cup career that far at that level.

The International Farewell: 126 Goals in 208 Games

On August 31, 2026, Messi announced his retirement from the Argentina national team, per Yardbarker’s September 1, 2026 report, and he played his final game for his country in October 2026, per ESPN’s October 23, 2026 report. The final tally was 126 goals in 208 appearances, both Argentina records. He won the 2022 World Cup and two Copa América titles, in 2021 and 2024, after losing three straight major finals between 2014 and 2016.

The timing surprised nobody who watched the final. He had said for years that the 2026 World Cup would likely be his last tournament, and the extra-time defeat to Spain gave the farewell a clean, if painful, endpoint. The Argentine federation’s position, reported in August 2026, was that the timing of any farewell match was Messi’s decision alone. He took that decision in the weeks after the final, and the October appearance closed a 21-year international career that began with a one-minute red card on his debut against Hungary in 2005.

Retirement from Argentina is not retirement from football. His Inter Miami deal runs to 2028, and nothing in the August announcement touched his club future. Readers who see “Messi retired” headlines in 2026 should check which retirement is meant: the international one is real, the club one has not happened.

Ballon d’Or Fifth at 39 and the Asturias Honour

On October 26, 2026, Messi finished fifth in the Ballon d’Or vote at the ceremony at the London Palladium, per Sportskeeda’s October 28, 2026 report. The voting period ran from August 3, 2025, to July 19, 2026, and the official Ballon d’Or site’s line for Messi in that window was 49 matches, 45 goals, and 30 assists, taking in the back end of Miami’s 2025 season, the first half of the 2026 MLS campaign, and Argentina’s run to the World Cup final. Fifth place at 39, in a vote dominated by players in their twenties, is itself a statement about longevity: he has now placed in Ballon d’Or voting across four decades of his life.

Three days earlier, in Oviedo, Spain, he had received the Princess of Asturias Award for Sport, and spoke there about the World Cup final defeat as part of his journey. The two October honours frame the retirement neatly: a career award from Spain, where he spent 21 years, and a top-five Ballon d’Or finish for a season that ended in a World Cup final. Former Bayern and Juventus defender Medhi Benatia publicly questioned the fifth-place ranking, arguing that Messi’s numbers deserved better — a complaint that says as much about his 2026 as the ranking itself.

Inter Miami in Late 2026: Defending Champions in a Playoff Race

As of October 31, 2026, Messi’s club season is still running. Miami clinched a playoff spot on October 15, 2026, beating New York City FC 2–0, with Messi assisting Rodrigo De Paul’s goal and Germán Berterame scoring the opener, under new coach Cristian “Kily” González, who took charge on September 16. The win made Miami, in the Associated Press’s words, the reigning MLS Cup champions returning to the postseason to defend their title.

The run-in since then has been uneven. On October 24, Messi flew to Oviedo to collect the Asturias award, returned to a seat on the bench at the New York Red Bulls, came on in the 56th minute, and saw his 13-game run of direct goal contributions for club and country end in a 2–0 defeat. On October 28, Miami needed a 90th-minute goal from substitute Riquelme Fillipi to rescue a 2–2 draw against FC Cincinnati at home, after Luis Suárez had opened the scoring in the 61st minute and Cincinnati had turned the game around. The draw left Miami third in the Eastern Conference on 56 points, two behind the New England Revolution, with two regular-season games left: November 1 at New England and November 7 at home to Charlotte.

For a 39-year-old, the schedule is the story. Three games in eight days across two continents, a transatlantic awards trip in the middle of a playoff race, and a benching that the press read as load management rather than a dropping. The Miami staff have managed his minutes all season — the October 24 benching followed an agreed plan, per Sports Illustrated’s reporting — and the playoff race will test that management to its limit.

The Money at 39: An 0 Million to style=”border-bottom:2px solid #c9a227;padding-bottom:10px;margin-top:2.2em;scroll-margin-top:90px;”.1 Billion Fortune

Messi’s net worth in 2026 is estimated between $850 million and $1.1 billion. Forbes put him at about $1.1 billion in August 2026, per Yardbarker’s September 2026 summary, which would make him one of the few billionaire athletes in the world. Other trackers sit lower, near $850 million, per SportsAdda’s August 2026 profile and Sports Illustrated’s 2026 summary. The $250 million gap between the two ends is almost entirely one asset: an option to acquire an equity stake in Inter Miami after he retires, which he does not own yet, plus different treatment of his Adidas lifetime deal, signed in 2017, which pays royalties on merchandise rather than a flat fee.

What is published, rather than estimated, is his MLS pay. The MLS Players Association’s 2026 salary guide lists a base salary of $25 million and guaranteed compensation of $28.33 million, the highest in the league. Co-owner Jorge Mas has said the real annual figure, counting the Apple revenue share and the Adidas arrangement, is $70 million to $80 million. Forbes put his total earnings over the last 12 months at about $140 million, split evenly between $70 million on the field and $70 million off it, which placed him third on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid athletes.

Career earnings put the 39-year-old in a category of his own. Calciotech’s October 12, 2026 business profile puts his cumulative career income above $1.8 billion, with more than $1.2 billion earned directly from playing, including roughly €800 million in gross salary during his Barcelona years, per La Gazzetta dello Sport’s Marco Iaria, and a reported €30 million net per season at PSG plus a €25–30 million signing bonus. Those are gross career earnings, not net worth: taxes, agents, and two decades of spending sit between the two numbers, which is why a $1.8 billion earner holds a fortune estimated at $850 million to $1.1 billion.

Family: Antonela, Thiago, Mateo, and Ciro

Messi married Antonela Roccuzzo on June 30, 2017, in Rosario, in a ceremony attended by about 260 guests. They had known each other since childhood: Antonela, born February 26, 1988, also in Rosario, is the cousin of Lucas Scaglia, who played youth football alongside Messi, and the pair reconnected in 2005 after years apart. Antonela studied dentistry, then social communication, before leaving university, and has since built her own modelling and business career alongside the family.

The couple have three sons. Thiago was born on November 2, 2012, Mateo on September 11, 2015, and Ciro on March 10, 2018. That makes them 13, 11, and 8 in late 2026. Thiago already plays in Inter Miami’s academy system, and Messi has said Mateo takes after him in one respect: he does not like losing anything. The family moved to Miami with the Inter Miami transfer in 2023, and the boys’ school and academy life in Florida is now the fixed point around which the final years of his career are planned.

Family is also the reason the retirement decision landed the way it did. A 39-year-old with three school-age sons and a club contract to 2028 can keep playing club football in one city while stepping away from the travel of international duty. The August 2026 announcement did exactly that: it ended the Argentina travel, not the Miami life.

Age in Context: 39 Next to Ronaldo’s 41

Messi’s age reads differently next to his great rival’s. Cristiano Ronaldo turned 41 in February 2026, per el-balad’s June 2026 report, and was still playing at the World Cup in the summer of 2026. The two men, born 19 months apart, have now played top-level football into their late thirties and early forties in a way no previous generation of forwards managed. Their rivalry, which ran from 2009 to 2018 in Spain’s La Liga, has become a longevity contest: who keeps deciding matches the longest.

The wider picture favours the same conclusion. Goalkeepers and defenders have always lasted longer, but forwards at 39 who score 25 goals in 27 league games and eight goals at a World Cup are new. Sports medicine, load management, and the move to a less punishing league all help — Miami’s benching of Messi on October 24, 2026, after a transatlantic trip, is load management in action — but the core explanation is the one from his Barcelona years: he changed his game from speed to timing before his body forced him to.

Comparisons with younger stars cut the other way. At 39, Messi is more than twice the age of Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, who turned 19 in July 2026, and 14 years older than Kylian Mbappé, who was 27 at the 2026 World Cup. The Ballon d’Or voting period that put Messi fifth covered the same matches in which those younger players were building their own cases. Fifth place at 39 is not a lifetime-achievement vote. It is a vote for a season’s numbers.

What Comes Next: Contract to 2028 and the 40th Birthday

Three dates define Messi’s next two years. The first is November 7, 2026, when Miami close the regular season at home to Charlotte, with the playoffs to follow. The second is June 24, 2027, his 40th birthday, which will arrive during the MLS season and will prompt the same round of age articles this one joins. The third is the end of the 2028 MLS season, when his Inter Miami contract expires and the ownership option in his deal becomes a live question for the first time.

What he does after 2028 is unannounced. The ownership option would let him buy into the club he helped revalue from $600 million toward $1.35 billion. A farewell match in Argentina has been discussed in Argentine federation circles, per SportsAdda’s August 2026 report, but no date has been set. A coaching or ambassadorial role has been speculated about and nothing more. The honest answer to “what next” is that the contract to 2028 settles the next two years and leaves the rest open.

For now, the age article has a simple ending. Lionel Messi is 39, born June 24, 1987, in Rosario. He has played in six World Cups, won one, retired from Argentina with 126 goals in 208 games, finished fifth in the 2026 Ballon d’Or, and holds a fortune estimated at $850 million to $1.1 billion. He turns 40 in June 2027, and his club contract runs past that birthday to 2028. The number will change next June. The career behind it will not need revising.

Lionel Messi Age FAQs

Sources & Reporting

This profile was reported from live search results and competitor coverage checked on October 31, 2026. Birth, family, and early-life details draw on Wikipedia’s Lionel Messi biography, Britannica’s facts page (last updated October 26, 2026), and Sports Illustrated’s career timeline. The 2026 World Cup narrative draws on ESPN’s Messi tracker and October 23, 2026 retirement report, NBC Sports Boston’s final report (Spain 1–0, Torres 106th minute, 65 percent possession, 20–2 shots), Bleacher Report’s July 20, 2026 reaction piece (eight goals, four assists), OneFootball’s final player ratings, and Sports Illustrated’s final review. The retirement announcement draws on Yardbarker’s September 1, 2026 report, with the final-game timing from ESPN.

The Ballon d’Or fifth place draws on Sportskeeda’s October 28, 2026 report (October 26, 2026 ceremony, London Palladium; voting period August 3, 2025–July 19, 2026; 49 matches, 45 goals, 30 assists from the official Ballon d’Or site), and the Princess of Asturias Award for Sport from ESPN’s Oviedo report. Inter Miami’s late-2026 run draws on the Associated Press via theScore and TSN (October 28, 2026, 2–2 vs FC Cincinnati; reigning champions; 56 points; November 1 at New England, November 7 vs Charlotte), News Ei Samay and Inter Miami’s own account for the October 15, 2026 playoff-clinching win over New York City FC, Vava Sport for the October 24, 2026 loss at the New York Red Bulls, and Pasión Fútbol for the 25-goal, 15-assist, 27-appearance MLS tally.

Money figures draw on Forbes via Calciotech (October 12, 2026) and Yardbarker (about $1.1 billion, August 2026; $140 million over the last 12 months), SportsAdda’s August 2026 profile ($850 million to $1.1 billion; $25 million base, $28.33 million guaranteed; Jorge Mas $70–80 million), OneFootball’s July 2026 contract breakdown, and the MLS Players Association’s 2026 salary guide. Family details draw on myKhel, INBELLA, Hello Magazine, and EssentiallySports (June 30, 2017 wedding; Thiago November 2, 2012; Mateo September 11, 2015; Ciro March 10, 2018; Antonela born February 26, 1988). Figures are estimates built from reported earnings and public estimates, not audited financial statements. Where outlets disagreed — on the net-worth total — this article prints the range and the reason for it rather than picking the biggest number. If new reporting emerges, above all the 2026 MLS Cup playoffs or any 2028 announcement, this article will be updated and the change noted here.