Lionel Messi won Major League Soccer’s 2024 Most Valuable Player award despite missing half of the MLS season due to injuries, load management and international duty.

The MLS announced Friday that Messi beat Columbus Crew forward Cucho Hernández for the win in his first full season with Inter Miami.

Messi won 38.4% of the total votes, Cucho 33.7%; No other player earned more than 10%.

Messi was the choice of 40.8% of his teammates, 43.2% of selected media representatives and 31.3% of the club’s technical staff – the only one of the three groups, each accounting for 33.3% of the weighted votes, that did not make the cut has Messi is his first choice.

Portland Timbers forward Evander placed third with 9.2% of the vote; DC United striker Christian Benteke, the league’s top scorer, finished fourth with 7.1%; Luis Suárez, Messi’s teammate and long-time friend at Inter Miami, came fifth with 2.2%.

Messi won the award because he scored 20 goals and 11 assists in the 19 MLS regular season games he played. He only started 15 games and logged just 47% of available minutes, but he still scored more goals than anyone else in the league – even those that came in all 34 regular season games.

His critics in the MVP debate cited his frequent absences. Messi missed the spring with a muscle injury, the Copa América with the Argentina national team in June and July, and August and September after suffering an ankle injury in the Copa América final.

Critics also noted that Inter Miami’s results were almost as good without Messi (2.13 points per game) as with him (2.21 PPG).

But the matter with Messi was clear. From his arrival in 2023 to 2024, he transformed Inter Miami from cellar-dwellers to the best team in the league. In 2024, they broke the MLS single-season points record and won the Supporters’ Shield with weeks to go.

And taken individually, Messi’s half-season was still one of the best full seasons in league history. Taking into account his five secondary assists – which count in MLS but not in most of world football – Messi’s 36 goal contributions were the fifth-most in a single MLS season.

His 2.2 goal involvements per 90 minutes were of course by far the highest in league history. Excluding secondary assists, his rate was still an absurd 1.87 per 90 – more than half a goal better than the rate of any other player in a season in MLS history, according to FBref. In fact, in several of the league’s previous 28 seasons, Messi’s rate would have been more than double that of the league leader.

So he won the MVP award – although not overwhelmingly so. His margin was the narrowest of any MLS MVP in the last decade.

He is believed to be the first player in major U.S. sports history to win an MVP despite starting fewer than half of his team’s games and missing more than 40% of them overall (excluding baseball pitchers, which normally only start every five games). ).

Messi’s playoffs ended early, with a stunning first-round upset at the hands of Atlanta United. But the MVP is a regular season award. And across 34 games, Messi’s 19 were the most valuable.

He was presented with the MVP trophy by Inter Miami at Chase Stadium earlier this week. In a video distributed by MLS, he arrived at the stadium to meet MLS commissioner Don Garber and about 100 children from Inter Miami’s youth teams, all wearing their pink jerseys and chanting “MVP.”

In a short speech, Messi called the award and reception an “honor” and told the children: “I would have liked to receive this award in a different situation, if I could play the (MLS Cup) final (this) Saturday.” But that’s what football is all about, about overcoming yourself every day. We had a big dream of becoming MLS champions this year, but next year we will come back stronger to try again.