Lionel Messi’s first full season in Major League Soccer in 2024 ended with his Inter Miami team topping the overall league table with a record points tally and their star man walking away with the league’s MVP award. One of these achievements will repeat in 2025, as Messi has once again, perhaps predictably, been the outstanding player in MLS.
Having been named MVP in 2024, and deservedly so despite not playing as many minutes as the other contenders, Messi is in line to become the first player to win the award in consecutive seasons.
The first season of MLS kicked off in 1996 on the back of the 1994 World Cup held in the United States. The only player to be named MVP twice in the league’s 30-season history is Preki, who won it in two separate stints with the Kansas City Wizards.
Messi will more than likely become the second in early November, late December this year, ahead of the MLS Cup final when the award is usually announced.
His Inter Miami team will hope to be in that final, as for all the individual plaudits bestowed on Messi, the main trophy they have been targeting during his time at the club is the MLS Cup.