Back again for another Player of the Matchday vote analysis, and back again to talk about another dominant performance from Lionel Messi of Inter Miami CF.
How We Voted is the column that catches you up on the top players and moments from each round of Major League Soccer matches, and due to the busy three-match week faced by many clubs, this is also the third one of these columns to run in the past week.
It’s All-Star Week for MLS right now, and those festivities in Austin, Texas, sped the whole Player of the Matchday and Team of the Matchday voting process up by one day and somewhat buried the winning of these Matchday awards in the proverbial Major League Soccer news cycle.
We had less time to decide on our votes, but mercifully, this was one of the more straightforward rounds of voting: The league’s most famous player just cannot stop eviscerating opposing MLS defenses, and this time it was the Red Bulls’ turn on their home New Jersey turf.
There’s not much more that needs to be said about Messi, but I still will attempt to say some more things about him, as well as the player who placed second on my ballot. We also catch up on who earned spots in the MLS Team of the Matchday, which is heavy on Inter Miami off that 5-1 away win at Sports Illustrated Stadium.
The HRB Ballot, Matchday 26
1. Lionel Messi, Inter Miami CF
The assist to Jordi Alba for the opening goal was, in this writer’s view, the best part of what was an all-around Messi masterclass in Miami’s 5-1 pasting of New York Red Bulls at Sports Illustrated Stadium.
He’d add a “secondary/hockey assist” on Telasco Segovia’s 27th-minute goal that made it 2-0 and set the rout fully in motion. Two goals would follow from the Argentine, so add his sixth brace of the 2025 MLS season to total four goal contributions by MLS’s standards.
Video is via @MLS on Twitter.
The crowd went out to Harrison to see Messi and that crowd was loud in Miami’s favor as the goals kept going in. Not the first time the home team has watched Red Bull lose 5-1, since it just happened back on September 28, 2024, when New York City FC last traveled to then-Red Bull Arena and got their biggest road Hudson River Derby win ever.
Messi’s streak of braces snapped in the 3-0 loss away to FC Cincinnati in Miami’s previous much, but he bounced back in utterly dominant fashion and it felt like there was no doubt he’d win yet another Player of the Matchday – now his fifth time winning this season, and 11th overall since coming to MLS in the summer of 2023.
Andrew Leigh
2. Petar Musa, FC Dallas
Musa fueled FC Dallas to a comfortable 3-0 home win while debuting their throwback Dallas Burn kits as part of this new line of “retro” third jerseys just debuted by a majority of MLS teams. A performance from Musa that legendary Dallas Burn striker and 1999 MLS MVP Jason Kreis would be proud of – apparently, Kreis was even in the building to see it, per the excellent and long-running (since 1997) FC Dallas news site 3rd Degree.
Enough about the Dallas Burn, Petar Musa is a much different striker than Kreis: He’s big at 6’3” and plays with a physical presence up top while not sacrificing anything in technical ability or in finishing ability in front of goal. Musa’s assist was a nice flash of his back-to-goal skills, receiving a pass while marked but able to lay off a perfect short pass that would be blasted into the top corner of goal by Kaick, the 19-year-old Brazilian midfielder getting his first MLS goal.
The assist looked like it would be Musa’s biggest contribution as Dallas clung to a 1-0 lead, until Musa struck in the 79th minute to double his team’s advantage. Musa completely rinsed St. Louis defender Timo Baumgartl on his goal, perfectly chesting down a pass from over the top and then getting himself clear in on goal, showing no hesitation in beating Roman Bürki.
Video via @MLS on Twitter.
He’d add a second from the penalty spot at the very end, so two goals and an assist in a 3-0 win would make Musa the Player of the Matchday in a world where Messi wasn’t still doing Prime Messi things match after match.
Official Player of the Matchday: Messi
You wonder if Messi heard people mentioning Evander or Anders Dreyer as the leaders in the race for MLS MVP and decided he had to turn on the jets a bit to ensure nobody gets confused about the identity of the league’s current best player. It’s a ridiculous streak, with people now coming out of the woodwork to claim MLS is “too easy” for him. He makes it look easy but it’s definitely not easy, so he should just keep winning all the awards. His contract still hasn’t been officially extended with MLS and Inter Miami, so opportunities to appreciate what Messi can still do at age 38 might be finite – you never know with any player, but especially one who can still do what Messi does.
MLS Team of the Matchday
Starters: Roman Celentano (CIN) - Jordi Alba (MIA), Jack Elliott (CHI), Maya Yoshida (LA) - Denis Bouanga (LAFC), Martín Ojeda (ORL), Pep Biel (CLT), Telasco Segovia (MIA) - Danny Musovski (SEA), Petar Musa (DAL), Lionel Messi (MIA)
Coach: Javier Mascherano (MIA)
Bench: Chris Brady (CHI), Ian Pilcher (SD), Luca Orellano (CIN), Dániel Gazdag (CLB), Omir Fernandez (POR), Pedro de la Vega (SEA), Wilfried Zaha (CLT), Gabriel Pec (LA), Sam Surridge (NSH)
Three Miami players in the Starting XI with Javier Mascherano as the coach of the Matchday: Beating the Red Bulls that soundly at home does wonders for your performance in MLS awards voting. Jordi Alba's opening goal from that pinpoint, perfectly-angled Messi pass won Goal of the Matchday, too – everything came up Inter Messi in this round of games. Martín Ojeda would be the unofficial third-place finisher on my ballot for Player of the Matchday, he had a brace and it landed him a starting spot here.
