Lionel Messi becomes MLS's 1st back-to-back MVP winner

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 honour.

Messi — thanking his teammates and saying he couldn't have won the award without them — accepted the trophy at the opening ceremony his Messi Cup youth tournament, which kicked off Tuesday. That's why the award announcement was delayed until after the season; Messi wanted kids to be part of it.

"He's a unicorn, man — not just for what he does on the field," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said Tuesday after the on-field ceremony in misty conditions. "He's just a special man."

The back-to-back MVPs represents 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 after Saturday's MLS final.

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 per cent of the total vote — the biggest winning total