Culture
Messi's Last Argentina Match: 3-0 Over Benin, and Goal 126
Lionel Messi played his last match for Argentina on Tuesday 6 October: a 3-0 win over Benin at the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires. Nicolás Otamendi, Nico Paz and Messi from the penalty spot scored, in that order. Messi assisted the first two. The penalty was his 126th goal for Argentina.
Five independent outlets print the same 3-0, and two of them print the same three scorers in the same sequence, so all of that is solid.
What we are not printing: the minutes. One source has the goals at 46, 61 and 71; another has 47, 61 and 70. Two of the three disagree, so none of the three goes in. We also saw a live-blog page, still dated 6 October, carrying the headline “Argentina draws 0-0 with Benin.” That page froze mid-match. A live headline is not a final score, and this is exactly why we wait for an explicit full-time signal before we publish one.
Two more numbers are circulating that we are attributing rather than asserting: Primicias calls it match 208 for Argentina, and Infobae reports more than 85,000 in the stadium. Each appears in one place only. Take them as those outlets’ reporting.
Twenty-one years, and a penalty worth one point
Here is the thing about a farewell like this one if you run a prediction pool. In a win-draw-lose pool, Messi’s penalty in a 3-0 was worth exactly what the 1-0 was worth. One point. The scoreline had already happened.
That is not a knock on the night. It is the clearest illustration of what these pools actually measure, which is not who played well. They measure whether you called the result. A hat-trick from the greatest player of his generation and a scrappy own goal move your standings identically.
If your group wants the moments to count for something, that is a scoring choice, not a scoring accident. Exact-score and distance scoring put weight on how a match ends rather than just who won it. The trade-offs are in exact-score scoring rules and distance scoring explained.
None of this scored, and here is why
International friendlies are not seeded in Quini. Tuesday’s match did not sit in anybody’s pool, did not award points and did not move any table. Same as every international window.
So if you spent the last ten days with nothing on your board, this is the useful part.
What is actually on the board this weekend
Club football restarts on Friday 9 October, and the Premier League weekend ends with the fixture everyone will be marking.
Times below are converted from our own database read, which stores kickoffs in Mexico City time. Sunday’s read came back complete, so this list is the whole Sunday Premier card.
Sunday 11 October, Premier League
| UK | ET | Fixture |
|---|---|---|
| 14:00 | 9:00 AM | Crystal Palace vs Nottingham Forest |
| 14:00 | 9:00 AM | Hull City vs Everton |
| 16:30 | 11:30 AM | Liverpool vs Manchester City |
Friday and Saturday are a different story on our end. That read came back truncated, 53 rows out of 99, so we are not going to tell you it is the complete card. What we can name from it: Arsenal vs Leeds and Manchester United vs Tottenham on Saturday, plus Barcelona vs Getafe and Real Madrid vs Villarreal in Spain and Augsburg vs Bayern in Germany the same day. There are more. We will not pretend to know how many.
For the same reason we are not numbering the gameweek. The number in our database is our own data, not the league’s published one, and we only print numbers we can cross-check.
MLS, Saturday 10 October
MLS is seeded, so this one goes straight into a pool. Inter Miami vs DC United kicks off at 6:30 PM ET on Saturday. There are several more MLS fixtures the same day; our Saturday read was the truncated one, so we are naming the ones we have rather than counting a full slate.
The real difficulty of this weekend
Twelve days without club football, and then Liverpool vs City, two Madrid and Barcelona fixtures, Augsburg vs Bayern and a full MLS Saturday inside 72 hours.
Nobody has recent form on anybody. Squads come back from international duty with minutes split across three continents, and the people who normally pick on last weekend’s evidence do not have last weekend. That is a genuinely interesting round to pick, and it is also the round where the confident pickers in your group tend to drop points.
One practical consequence: if your pool closes all picks at a single deadline, put it before Friday evening rather than Saturday morning. Our breakdown of single-deadline versus per-match closing is in when should pick’em picks lock, and the mechanics of the formats are in how Quini works.
FAQ
What was the score in Messi’s last Argentina match?
Argentina 3-0 Benin, at the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires on Tuesday 6 October 2026.
Who scored for Argentina against Benin?
Nicolás Otamendi, Nico Paz and Lionel Messi from the penalty spot, in that order. Messi assisted the first two goals.
How many goals did Messi score for Argentina?
The penalty against Benin was his 126th for the national team.
Do international friendlies count in a Quini pool?
No. International competitions are not seeded, so they award no points and do not appear in any pool.
When is Liverpool vs Manchester City?
Sunday 11 October, 16:30 UK time, which is 11:30 AM Eastern.
Set your deadline before Friday night. Download Quini, build the pool for the weekend, invite the group, and let the fixtures, the deadlines and the live standings run themselves. Free to play, no money involved.