Argentina’s farewell to Lionel Messi at the Monumental produced a night of celebration inside the stadium and an altogether different story outside it, where one supporter ended up unable to take his seat after his former partner tore up his tickets at the entrance gates.
The match itself went as the home crowd hoped. Argentina beat Benin 3-0 at River Plate’s stadium, with goals from Nicolás Otamendi, Nico Paz and Lionel Messi himself from the penalty spot, before a post-match tribute to the captain from Rosario.
The man recounted what happened to the media covering the build-up to the game, in an interview with the streaming channel AZZ. He explained that after a heated argument at the gates, his ex-girlfriend destroyed his paper tickets. “First, Messi, we love you. Second, I’m having the worst night of my life: my ex just tore up my ticket. She’s inside and I can’t get in,” he said in front of the cameras in the area around the Monumental Stadium.
The financial blow made the situation harder to take. The supporter said he had paid 800,000 Argentine pesos for a pair of tickets, 400,000 each, bought at the last minute on the informal resale market to make sure he could be at the Núñez venue. He also described how his attempts to resolve the problem failed: he said he spoke with the head of security and was thrown out, and that when he went to the Lower Centenario stand his ticket was scanned and rejected as invalid.
His testimony spread quickly on social media, with users on X and outlets including the portal Contexto Tucumán and Infobae circulating images of the fan holding the torn ticket. Reaction online was divided. Some expressed sympathy for a supporter caught up in an unusual act of spite, while others suggested the scene may have been a desperate attempt to persuade security after he had been scammed with fake tickets bought on resale.
The incident stood in stark contrast to the demand that surrounded Messi’s farewell in Buenos Aires. More than 80,000 spectators filled the stadium, official tickets sold out within minutes, and prices on the black market climbed to extraordinary levels — the backdrop against which the tickets in question were bought.
For those who did get through the turnstiles, the evening at the Monumental combined football with music. The climax of the celebrations came with a musical segment arranged as a tribute to the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain forward. According to the outlet TN Show, one of the most moving moments arrived when the singer Soledad Pastorutti took to the stage to perform “Brindis”, the song she had also dedicated years earlier to Diego Armando Maradona. The performance moved Messi to tears as he stood on the pitch with his wife Antonela Roccuzzo and their children Thiago, Mateo and Ciro. At the end of the song, the artist from Santa Fe and the Argentina captain shared an embrace that drew applause from the whole stadium.
It was the kind of image that will be remembered as part of the history of the game. For the supporter stranded at the outer gates with a torn ticket and empty pockets, the same night will be remembered rather differently.