MLS award season is just around the corner, and to the surprise of nobody, Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi is up for league MVP.
The 37-year-old attacker is joined by attacking teammate Luis Suarez on a 34-player shortlist of MLS’s best players this year, with Matt Doyle suggesting that Messi is the strong favorite to win given his name and how respected he is.
With just 18 MLS appearances all season, though, a real argument can be made that Messi is not a worthy candidate to win MVP given just how few games the Argentine actually played for Inter Miami, who this season won the Supporters’ Shield largely due to the supporting cast.
And pundit Taylor Twellmen has now shared his verdict on if Messi deserves to win the MVP award.
Inter Miami showed they can win without Messi this year
Speaking on Twellman’s Takes, the former USA international noted how this year has been a major success for Inter Miami due to how good the Herons have been when Messi is unavailable, something the Florida franchise experienced for almost half the season.
Inter Miami won an impressive eight MLS games from nine this summer with Messi out due to the Copa America and then injury, and for Twellman, this period of the season showed that Tata Martino’s side are a complete unit rather than reliant on one player.
Twellman said on if Messi deserves the MVP award: “17 goals and 15 assists in 18 games is alien-like, that’s out of this world type of production, but I ruffled some feathers when I said Miami won the Shield when they won eight of nine games without Messi.
“In 2023, Inter Miami won 78% of their games with him, only 12% without. The big question this year was how would Miami survive without Messi in the summer, they answered that, they won eight of nine, so to keep the same points per game with or without him, nobody predicted that.”
Messi winning MLS MVP would be a bad advert for the league
Messi is easily the best player in MLS when fully fit and available for selection, with the Inter Miami star’s numbers showing that had the Argentine been injury-free, he could have broken a number of goalscoring and assist records.
However, with just 18 league games played, Messi winning MLS MVP would be a bad advert for the league and would be a huge slap in the face for other players who have been fit all season and who have been key to their clubs in qualifying for the play-offs.
With league legends like Bradley Wright-Phillips sharing a similar mindset, Messi not winning MVP is hardly a hot take, and it’s one that could show the world that MLS is more than just the Argentine international.