They had hoped he would stay forever. When Lionel Messi announced on Monday that he was retiring from the national team it unleashed a depth of grief and disbelief in Argentina rarely seen for an event everyone knew was coming.

“It hurts me so much,” said Damián Tiralongo, 47, the owner of a soccer jersey store in Buenos Aires. “It’s the end of an era.” The retirement of Messi, the soccer star who restored Argentina to global glory by leading the team to the 2022 World Cup and to the final this year, sparked not only fears of a diminished team, but heartbreak over the departure of an icon who had carried the hopes, pride, and much of the identity of an entire country for two decades.

Messi, the captain of the national team, is, at 39, youngish in the world beyond soccer but elderly for a world-class player. His departure had been long anticipated but never officially confirmed. His announcement on Monday — a handwritten letter published on Instagram — felt to many Argentines like a tender farewell from a star long admired as much for his humility as his soccer genius.

“I gave every last drop of myself; I have nothing left to give,” he wrote. “Now I will be just another one of you, always supporting and standing by the team from the outside (in the good times, and even more so in the bad).”