12/09/25 10:07:00
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12/09 10:05 CST It's Messi. Repeat, Messi. The Inter Miami star is MLS' first
back-to-back MVP winner
It's Messi. Repeat, Messi. The Inter Miami star is MLS' first back-to-back MVP
winner
By TIM REYNOLDS
AP Sports Writer
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) --- Best player. Best team. Inter Miami's Lionel
Messi is the unquestioned force in Major League Soccer right now, on a run like
nobody else the league has ever seen.
The 38-year-old Argentine star --- and captain of the MLS Cup champions --- has
become the first back-to-back MVP in MLS history, getting announced Tuesday as
this year's winner of the league's top individual honor.
It's 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.
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.
"He was fantastic the whole season, with the numbers and also with the
commitment," Inter Miami coach and longtime Messi teammate Javier Mascherano
said.
Messi played in barely half of Inter Miami's regular-season games in 2024, and
that sparked some doubt as to whether he deserved to win the MVP award.
He won a close vote last year. This year, there was no debate.
Messi got 70.4% of the total vote --- the biggest winning total since Toronto's
Sebastian Giovinco in 2015. San Diego's Anders Dreyer was second with 11.2%,
followed by LAFC's Denis Bouanga (7.3%), Cincinnati's Evander (4.8%) and
Nashville's Sam Surridge (2.4%).
"I think he's the unicorn of unicorns," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said of
Messi while attending an Inter Miami match earlier in this season's playoffs.
"You know, there's something about the way he's wired. He's 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."
This award joins dozens of other individual honors in Messi's career, including
eight Ballon d'Or titles, eight Pichichi trophies as La Liga's top scorer, six
La Liga best player nods, three Best FIFA Men's Player awards, three UEFA Men's
Player of the Year wins, two FIFA World Cup Golden Balls and no fewer than 15
selections as Argentina's best player in a given year. He's also been part of
winning 47 trophies for club and country --- including the 2022 World Cup ---
making him the most decorated player the men's game has ever seen.
"The reality," Mascherano said as the regular season was ending, "is that Leo
clears all doubts."
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's Josef Martinez in
2018 won MVP, a title and the Golden Boot as the league's scoring champion all
in the same year, another hat trick of sorts that Messi achieved in 2025.
Indeed, there has been no one like him --- in MLS for certain, and quite
possibly anywhere.
Forget winning back-to-back MVPs. There have been only four players in MLS
history --- Carlos Valderrama in 1996 and 1997, Marco Etcheverry in 1998 and
1999, David Villa in 2016 and 2017, and Martinez in 2018 and 2019 --- to win
the award one year and then even be a finalist for MVP in the following season.
And Messi isn't planning on leaving Miami anytime soon. He's signed a
three-year extension, meaning he'll be there when Inter Miami --- a franchise
that has seen its value explode since his arrival 2 years ago --- opens its
new stadium near Miami International Airport next season.
"When Lionel Messi made MLS his league of choice, it marked a turning point ---
not just for Inter Miami, but for our entire sport in North America," Garber
said when the contract was announced. "Since then, we've witnessed something
truly historic: the greatest player of all time bringing global attention to
our league. We're thrilled that Leo has chosen to stay and continue his career
with Inter Miami."
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.
In Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani and the New
York Yankees' 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.
A'ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has won the WNBA's MVP award in each of the
last two years. Denver's Nikola Jokic was the most recent NBA player to win MVP
back-to-back, doing so in 2021 and 2022. Aaron Rodgers --- then of Green Bay
--- won two straight NFL MVP awards in 2020 and 2021, and Washington's Alex
Ovechkin won the NHL's Hart Trophy in 2008 and 2009 for the most recent
occurrence of someone claiming that award in consecutive years.
But never in MLS --- until now.
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