FOOTBALL: Lionel Messi announces Qatar will be final World Cup

Lionel Mes­si has announced that 2022 will be his final World Cup.

The 35-year-old Argen­tin­ian is set to make his last World Cup appear­ance in Qatar.

The Qatar Games will be the fifth appear­ance since 2006.

“This will def­i­nite­ly be my last World Cup,” he said. I have decided.

The Barcelona leg­end has six goals and five assists in 19 World Cup appearances.

Mes­si has already fall­en into dis­ap­point­ment in the 2014 final, after Ger­many’s Mario Gotze scored a goal in extra time, end­ing his World Cup dreams.

The World Cup remains the only elu­sive tro­phy in Mes­si’s glo­ri­ous tro­phy cabinet.

Mes­si and Argenti­na will enter the com­pe­ti­tion as South Amer­i­can cham­pi­ons after beat­ing Brazil in last year’s Copa America.

At club lev­el, Mes­si’s future beyond next sum­mer remains a mys­tery, fol­low­ing reports that he is close to return­ing to Barcelona from Paris Saint-Germain.

But after a slump last year, Mes­si looks to be back at his best this sea­son, with a stag­ger­ing eight goals and eight assists already.

It remains to be seen if this means that Mes­si will retire from inter­na­tion­al foot­ball entire­ly, but he is not with­out reluc­tance to retire from that part.

Back in 2016, he made a shock retire­ment after suf­fer­ing his fourth Copa Amer­i­ca defeat.

How­ev­er, that deci­sion was quick­ly over­turned. With­out his lead­er­ship and skill, the coun­try is strug­gling to cope.