{"id":12570,"date":"2025-06-26T05:22:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T09:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/otamendi-messi-will-play-the-2026-world-cup-assures-the-argentine-defender\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T05:22:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T09:22:45","slug":"otamendi-messi-will-play-the-2026-world-cup-assures-the-argentine-defender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/otamendi-messi-will-play-the-2026-world-cup-assures-the-argentine-defender\/","title":{"rendered":"Otamendi: Messi will play the 2026 World Cup, assures the Argentine defender"},"content":{"rendered":"Benfica defender Nicol\u00e1s Otamendi has expressed his confidence that Lionel Messi will participate in the 2026 World Cup.\n\nMessi, who was the Most Valuable Player in the last World Cup, has not yet confirmed his participation in next year&#8217;s tournament.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;Obviously, as the World Cup approaches, he will make his decision,&#8221; Otamendi said about Messi.<\/p><cite>Nicol\u00e1s Otamendi<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nMessi, who turned 38 on Tuesday, is currently competing in the FIFA Club World Cup with Inter Miami.\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F0626%2Fr1511436_2_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Otamendi cree que Messi participar\u00e1 en otra campa\u00f1a mundialista argentina en 2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\nOtamendi, who has played alongside Messi in the national team since 2009, maintains the hope that the Argentine captain will participate in his sixth World Cup.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;Leo is Leo, the best player in the history of football,&#8221; Otamendi stated. &#8220;At the moment, he is living the moment. He is enjoying the Club World Cup. Leo&#8217;s focus is to keep competing, taking it month by month and seeing how he feels.&#8221;<\/p><cite>Nicol\u00e1s Otamendi<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\nAdded: &#8220;He will make his decision based on how he feels physically, but you will never take away from Leo the desire to compete, to be there, to help the team. It&#8217;s in his DNA. Leo is different.&#8221;\n\nThe Argentine has scored 10 goals and provided six assists in 13 league appearances for Inter Miami this season and was voted MLS Player of the Month in May.\n\nMessi&#8217;s greatest triumph for Argentina came at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where La Albiceleste recovered from a surprising 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabia in their first match to win the tournament.\n\nThe veteran striker followed that triumph by leading Argentina to the 2024 Copa Am\u00e9rica. Argentina has already qualified for next year&#8217;s World Cup to be held in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Benfica defender Nicol\u00e1s Otamendi has expressed his confidence that Lionel Messi will participate in the 2026 World Cup. Messi, who was the Most Valuable Player in the last World Cup, has not yet confirmed his participation in next year&#8217;s tournament. &#8220;Obviously, as the World Cup approaches, he will make his decision,&#8221; Otamendi said about Messi. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[893,1427,4784,522],"class_list":{"0":"post-12570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-argentina","9":"tag-messi","10":"tag-otamendi","11":"tag-world-cup"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}