Major League Soccer is milking the Lionel Messi cow as much as they can. MLS has never been shy of the preposterous, the shootout and countdown clocks anyone? But the league continued to show its obsession with staying relevant over being serious with their latest end of season awards announcement.
Lionel Messi, alongside Atlanta United striker Giorgos Giakoumakis and St. Louis City SC midfielder Eduard Löwen were named as the newcomers of the year for 2023. Giorgos Giakoumakis seems like a lock for the award given his 17 goals in 27 games for the five stripes.
Still, adding Messi after only 6 MLS games was panned by pundits and fans on social media but there have been arguments made for and against naming Messi to the ballot.
Argument for Messi being on newcomer ballot
Despite the claim that Messi only played six regular season games, some pundits and fans online made a good case that Messi was fantastic in leading Inter Miami to their first title in history, the Leagues Cup.
While the Leagues Cup is not a part of the regular season a fan on social media wrote, “Leagues Cup is an MLS invention, it’s basically the regular season within the regular season, LigaMX is just along for the ride.”
Understanding from a point of view that while Leagues Cup is an “international tournament”, without MLS pioneering it, LigaMX wouldn’t have even participated and lifting that cup has merit given the club’s situation before Messi arrived.
Argument against Messi on newcomers’ ballot
Other pundits have stressed that it’s only about star power, that Messi’s name has to appear somewhere from now till the end of the season, where MLS will have a Messiless playoffs.
Messi also missed a lot of his Inter Miami games near the end of the season due to injury and during that time Inter Miami fell off the rails and the momentum of the Leagues Cup victory had wilted by the last few weeks of the season where the team with and without Messi was winless in their last seven matches.
MLS end of season awards 2023 Landon Donovan MLS MVP Luciano Acosta, FC Cincinnati Thiago Almada, Atlanta United Denis Bouanga, LAFC
Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year
Bradley Carnell, St. Louis City SC
Wilfried Nancy, Columbus Crew
Pat Noonan, FC Cincinnati
MLS Newcomer of the Year
Giorgos Giakoumakis, Atlanta United
Eduard Löwen, St. Louis City SC
Lionel Messi, Inter Miami CF
MLS Young Player of the Year
Thiago Almada, Atlanta United
Duncan McGuire, Orlando City SC
Aidan Morris, Columbus Crew
MLS Goalkeeper of the Year Roman Burki, St. Louis City SC Roman Celentano, FC Cincinnati Pedro Gallese, Orlando City SC
MLS Defender of the Year
Yeimar Gomez Andrade, Seattle Sounders FC
Matt Miazga, FC Cincinnati
Tim Parker, St. Louis City SC
MLS Comeback Player of the Year
Joao Paulo, Seattle Sounders FC
Alan Pulido, Sporting Kansas City
Miles Robinson, Atlanta United