Lionel Messi won Major League Soccer’s 2024 Most Valuable Player award despite missing half of the MLS season due to injuries, load management and international commitments.
MLS announced Friday that Messi edged out Columbus Crew forward Cucho Hernández for the honor in his first full season with Inter Miami.
Messi obtained 38.4% of the total vote compared to 33.7% for Cucho; no other player won more than 10%.
Messi was chosen by 40.8% of his teammates, 43.2% of select members of the media and 31.3% of the club’s technical staff; the only one of the three groups, each representing 33.3% of the weighted vote, that failed to arrive. Messi is his first option.
Portland Timbers forward Evander finished third with 9.2% of the vote; DC United forward Christian Benteke, the league’s leading scorer, finished fourth with 7.1%; Luis Suárez, Messi’s teammate at Inter Miami and an old friend, finished fifth with 2.2%.
Messi won the award because, in the 19 MLS regular season games he played, he scored 20 goals and 11 assists. He started only 15 games and logged only 47% of available minutes, but he still created more goals than anyone in the league, even those who played in all 34 regular season games.
His detractors in the MVP debate cited his frequent absences. Messi missed time in the spring with a muscle injury, in June and July while in the Copa América with the Argentine team, and in August and September after suffering an ankle injury in the Copa América final.
Critics also noted that Inter Miami’s results were almost as good without Messi (2.13 points per game) as with him (2.21 points per game).
But Messi’s case was clear. From his arrival in 2023 to 2024, he transformed Inter Miami from a basement dweller into the best team in the league. In 2024, they broke the MLS single-season points record and won the Supporters’ Shield with weeks to spare.
And individually, Messi’s half-season still ranks among the best full seasons in league history. Taking into account his five secondary assists (which MLS counts, but most of world soccer doesn’t), Messi’s 36 goal contributions were the fifth-most in a single MLS campaign.
His 2.2 goals per 90 minutes were, of course, the most in league history. Eliminating secondary assists, his rate was still an absurd 1.87 per 90, more than half a goal better than the rate of any other player in a single season in MLS history. by FBref. In fact, in several of the league’s previous 28 seasons, Messi’s pace would have been more than twice as prolific as the league leader.
So he won the MVP award, although not in a landslide. His margin was the smallest of any MLS MVP in the last decade.
He is believed to be the first player in the history of major American sports to win an MVP by starting less than half of his team’s games and missing more than 40% of them in total (excluding baseball pitchers, who normally only start once every five games). ).
Messi’s playoffs ended early, with a surprising first-round upset at the hands of Atlanta United. But the MVP is a regular season award. And in 34 games, Messi’s 19 were the most valuable.
Last week he received the Most Valuable Player trophy at Inter Miami’s Chase Stadium. In a video distributed by MLS, he arrived at the stadium to meet MLS commissioner Don Garber and about 100 kids from Inter Miami’s youth teams, all decked out in their pink uniforms and chanting “MVP.”
In a brief speech, Messi called the award and reception an “honor” and told the children: “I would have liked to receive this award in another situation, being able to play in the (MLS Cup) final (this) Saturday. But that’s also what football is about, improving ourselves every day. We had a big dream of being MLS champions this year. It wasn’t achieved, but next year we will come back stronger to try again.”