Best player. Best team. Inter Miami\u2019s Lionel Messi is the unquestioned force in Major League Soccer right now, on a run like nobody else the league has ever seen.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old Argentine star \u2013 and captain of the MLS Cup champions \u2013 has become the first back-to-back MVP in MLS history, being announced Tuesday as this year\u2019s winner of the league\u2019s top individual honor.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s another first for Messi in what seems like a never-ending list of his career accomplishments and was widely expected, almost assumed, after he had a league-best 29 goals along with 19 assists during the regular season.<\/p>\n
He also becomes just the second two-time MVP the league has ever seen, joining Preki, the winner of the award in 1997 and 2003. The other winners are all one-time MVP recipients.<\/p>\n
“He was fantastic the whole season, with the numbers and also with the commitment,” Inter Miami coach and longtime Messi teammate Javier Mascherano said.<\/p>\n
Messi played in barely half of Inter Miami\u2019s regular-season games in 2024, and that sparked some doubt about whether he deserved to win the MVP award.<\/p>\n
He won a close vote last year. This year, there was no debate.<\/p>\n
Messi got 70.4% of the total vote \u2014 the biggest winning total since Toronto’s Sebastian Giovinco in 2015. San Diego\u2019s Anders Dreyer was second with 11.2%, followed by LAFC\u2019s Denis Bouanga (7.3%), Cincinnati\u2019s Evander (4.8%) and Nashville\u2019s Sam Surridge (2.4%).<\/p>\n
“I think he\u2019s the unicorn of unicorns,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said of Messi while attending an Inter Miami match earlier in this season\u2019s playoffs. “You know, there\u2019s something about the way he\u2019s wired. He\u2019s thinking about the game like nobody else ever has. His intensity and desire to win is what makes him the greatest of all time. There are a lot of really competitive players, but he has this special sauce, this dynamic that has him so focused on doing what he needs to do to win games.”<\/p>\n
This award joins dozens of other individual honors in Messi\u2019s career, including eight Ballon d\u2019Or titles, eight Pichichi trophies as La Liga\u2019s top scorer, six La Liga best player nods, three Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player awards, three UEFA Men\u2019s Player of the Year wins, two FIFA World Cup Golden Balls and no fewer than 15 selections as Argentina\u2019s best player in a given year. He\u2019s also been part of winning 47 trophies for club and country \u2013 including the 2022 World Cup \u2013 making him the most decorated player the men\u2019s game has ever seen.<\/p>\n
“The reality,” Mascherano said as the regular season was ending, “is that Leo clears all doubts.”<\/p>\n
Messi becomes the sixth player in MLS history to win MVP and a championship in the same season. Of the previous five, only Atlanta United\u2019s Josef Martinez in 2018 won MVP, a title and the Golden Boot as the league\u2019s scoring champion all in the same year, another hat trick of sorts that Messi achieved in 2025.<\/p>\n
Indeed, there has been no one like him \u2013 in MLS for certain, and quite possibly anywhere.<\/p>\n
Forget winning back-to-back MVPs. There have been only four players in MLS history \u2014 Carlos Valderrama in 1996 and 1997, Marco Etcheverry in 1998 and 1999, David Villa in 2016 and 2017, and Martinez in 2018 and 2019 \u2014 to win the award one year and then even be a finalist for MVP in the following season.<\/p>\n
And Messi isn\u2019t planning on leaving Miami anytime soon. He\u2019s signed a three-year extension, meaning he\u2019ll be there when Inter Miami \u2013 a franchise that has seen its value explode since his arrival 2.5 years ago \u2013 opens its new stadium near Miami International Airport next season.<\/p>\n
“When Lionel Messi made MLS his league of choice, it marked a turning point \u2013 not just for Inter Miami, but for our entire sport in North America,” Garber said when the contract was announced. “Since then, we\u2019ve witnessed something truly historic: the greatest player of all time bringing global attention to our league. We\u2019re thrilled that Leo has chosen to stay and continue his career with Inter Miami.”<\/p>\n
The phenomenon of having a back-to-back MVP has occurred in each of the other major U.S. pro sports leagues in the past plenty of times, with the most recent instance of each happening fairly recently.<\/p>\n
In Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 Shohei Ohtani and the New York Yankees\u2019 Aaron Judge have won the National League and American League MVP awards, respectively, in each of the last two seasons; Ohtani won the AL MVP award with the Los Angeles Angels in 2023, as well.<\/p>\n
A\u2019ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has won the WNBA\u2019s MVP award in each of the last two years. Denver\u2019s Nikola Jokic was the most recent NBA player to win MVP back-to-back, doing so in 2021 and 2022. Aaron Rodgers \u2013 then of Green Bay \u2013 won two straight NFL MVP awards in 2020 and 2021, and Washington’s Alex Ovechkin won the NHL\u2019s Hart Trophy in 2008 and 2009 for the most recent occurrence of someone claiming that award in consecutive years.<\/p>\n
But never in MLS \u2014 until now.<\/p>\n
Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n
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