Nobody on earth was handing over their shirt from Lionel Messi's last game for Argentina. These are souvenirs from a send-off at the Monumental, the night Messi scored his final international goal from the penalty spot and walked off as his country's all-time leader in appearances and goals. Of course the Argentina players kept them. You would too.
The real problem is what Gernot Rohr described happening after.
Rohr told RMC Sport his Benin players turned up at the tunnel with their shirts, hoping to swap, and got nothing: no photo, no exchange. "They wouldn't even allow us to enter their player corridor. Security was turning everyone away." His players, the ones who actually shared a pitch with Messi on the biggest night of their careers, got waved off by a security operation that treated them like gatecrashers at their own fixture.
That's on the organization, plain and simple. And the organization here is the Argentine federation, which had Benin flying economy and staying in run-down hotels all week before parading them in front of a packed Monumental as the designated opponent for a coronation. Benin were ranked 93rd in the world going in. They were picked precisely because they'd lose quietly and cheaply. Then, having used them as the backdrop, the AFA couldn't be bothered to fence off ten minutes and a corner of the pitch so the visitors could get a picture.
Maybe nobody planned it as an insult. It might've just been a bad week of logistics, a photo window nobody managed. But logistics that shabby, across travel, hotels and the tunnel, add up to an attitude. When a federation nickel-and-dimes its guests at every stage of the week, the blocked corridor is the house style.
Two things cut against Rohr. Before kickoff, Benin's captain Sessi D'Almeida handed Messi a statue, a letter from the whole squad and a rose at the coin toss, and Messi smiled for a photo with one of their players. So the "not even a photo" line only covers what happened after the coin toss. And Scaloni took Rohr's 2018 Messi shirt, got it signed, and returned it. "I waited half an hour, but it's no big deal," Rohr said. One coach made the effort. One keepsake got sorted. When someone in the Argentina camp tried, it worked. When it was left to security and the suits, it didn't.
There's also the clip of Messi himself waving off a Benin player chasing a selfie after the whistle. The racism accusations floating around that clip don't hold up. A man playing the last match of his international career, soaking up a stadium saying goodbye, is allowed to not stop for a phone. That's a human moment.
The crime, such as it is, is institutional. Benin were good guests. They brought gifts and warmth, and smiled through a week of bad travel. Argentina's federation took all of it and gave back a wall of stewards. Keep your shirts, lads. They're worth a fortune and they're yours. But a federation that can stage a night like this and still can't arrange a photo for the team it hand-picked to lose just ran out of class.
