There are relationships between brands and athletes that end up forming part of the iconography of a race. Adidas and Lionel Messi have been building one of these for two decades and, before the final farewell of the footballer from the Argentine national team, the company has deployed a series of actions that cover some of the symbols shared during that time: the boots, the shirt, Argentina and Rosario.

This October 6, Messi played his last match with Argentina in front of more than 85,000 people at the Monumental in Buenos Aires. The national team won 3-0 against Benin and the player closed his international career by scoring his 126th goal in 208 games from a penalty. After more than twenty years with the Albiceleste, he said goodbye stating that he had been “It is a great pride to defend this shirt” and defining the day as “the saddest day of my career”.

For Adidas, the moment also has a particular dimension. The brand dresses the Argentine national team and maintains a relationship with Messi that dates back to the first years of his career. In fact, the company itself talks about two decades of moments, memories and milestones shared between Messi and Adidas.
In the words of the footballer himself: “I’m leaving in peace. I left everything. This shirt was my dream, my pride and my life. Thank you for loving me so much. I’m going to miss you.”

“Thank you 10”, from Rosario to the last game

One of the most visible tributes appeared precisely in Rosario, the player’s hometown. Adidas displayed an Argentina t-shirt more than 30 meters long on the esplanade of the National Flag Monument, accompanied by a simple but emotional “THANK YOU 10”.

The action was developed together with Newcycle, responsible for the creative idea and content production and an agency that has been working with the brand for more than ten years. The installation remained open to the public and served as the starting point of a campaign that would continue later in Buenos Aires.

The choice of place allowed the story to be geographically closed: to bring gratitude to the city where Messi’s personal story began before moving it to the stage where he would end his career with the national team.
Furthermore, the giant t-shirt was not just any reproduction. It corresponded to the design of the special edition AFA x Messi created by Adidas specifically around his farewell and used by Argentina during their last match.

The brand had presented this collection on September 25. The design is based on the Argentine flag and incorporates golden details, Messi’s personal logo and specific commemorative elements. The proposal includes match kit, pre-match clothing and a fashion line linked to the tribute.

Original post by Adidas Argentina on Instagram.

In this way, Adidas has used one of its main commercial territories, the sports product, as part of the farewell so that the shirt that the footballer wore in his last match was also an object created to signal that that match was different.

“El Último Tango”: return to 2006 to close the circle

The farewell, however, had begun months before.
In June, coinciding with the 2026 World Cup, Adidas presented “El Último Tango”, a special collection designed to honor Messi’s last participation in the largest national team tournament. The idea was built around a particularly useful reference to tell the longevity of the relationship: returning to the boots he used in his first World Cup, twenty years earlier.

The F50 “El Último Tango” reinterpreted the F50.6 TUNIT that Messi wore during his early years. The new design combines iridescent white and blue as a reference to Argentine colors and recovers visual codes from that stage adapted to the current F50 generation.

The collection was not limited to footwear. Adidas also developed a line of clothing and a commemorative t-shirt whose design is inspired by the Argentina kits worn by Messi throughout the six World Cups of his career.

This approach also gave rise to one of Adidas’s main advertising pieces around the footballer this year. The spot “Último Tango”, directed by Bleunuit, created with The Midnight Club and produced by Division, uses tango precisely as a narrative framework to unite football, Argentine culture and Messi’s career.

The piece avoids presenting the relationship solely as a succession of sporting achievements. He builds football around the codes of tango and the emotional relationship between Messi and the Argentine fans, using music, editing and practically monochromatic photography to present his last World Cup as the closing of a journey.

Official publication on Division’s Instagram profile

Adidas later expanded that story as the tournament progressed. When Messi became the all-time top scorer of the World Cups, the brand created another piece in which he reviewed his goals from 2006 to 2026 and gathered the official balls corresponding to each of those editions along with the F50 “El Último Tango”. Thus, the boots of 2026 recovered those of 2006 and the balls made it possible to travel through the World Cups played between both extremes.

A brand relationship that has spanned his entire career

The value of these actions is understood especially from the duration of the association because Adidas has not only appeared at the moment of withdrawal to appropriate a sporting event: it has built a substantial part of its commercial identity together with Messi for two decades.

The company has placed him among its main global ambassadors for years, has developed boots and collections with his name and has used his figure on some of its main communication platforms. In 2022, for example, Adidas was already officially referring to him as one of its historical partners after Argentina’s victory in Qatar.
In addition, the relationship overlaps with another asset of enormous relevance for the brand because Adidas is also a supplier to Argentina. This has allowed the player’s identity, his team’s shirt and the sports brand to share the same visual space for much of Messi’s international career.

In 2026, this partnership has allowed Adidas to work on the farewell at different times. First he anticipated the ending through “El Último Tango”; He then used the product, campaigns and the milestones achieved during the World Cup to trace his career; and finally he arrived at the last game with a specific t-shirt and with “Thank you 10” as a closing message.

The meeting itself ended up offering images that were difficult to plan from a campaign. The Monumental honored Messi in the 10th minute, the footballer scored the last goal of his international career and, at the end of the match, he remained on the pitch with his family and teammates before saying his last words as an Argentina player.

Original Adidas post on Instagram

“Not coming again is going to be a very big pain. I swear that I would like to come all my life because playing for the Argentine national team is the most beautiful thing that can happen to you.”he expressed during the farewell.

For Adidas, the end of this stage also closes one of the longest sports sponsorship stories in recent decades. From the F50 of 2006 to the F50 “El Último Tango” of 2026; from the t-shirts that accompanied six World Cups to a final kit created specifically to say goodbye.