Lionel Messi has taken Major League Soccer by storm without yet playing a Major League Soccer match. Apple TV is as elated as a streaming service can be during a content-crippling Hollywood strike. Fort Lauderdale has its newest Publix devotee. And every MLS stadium he visits, from Dallas to Charlotte, can expect an economic boom that Taylor Swift would be proud of.
Messi’s arrival created a perfect storm in the expanded Leagues Cup, as he, Sergio Busquets, and Jordi Alba arrived in pink-polo, South Florida style and transformed a struggling Inter Miami team into midseason Liga MX and MLS champions.
It started with Messi’s debut and a 94th-minute winner in Inter Miami’s opening group-stage match against Mexican side Cruz Azul on July 22 after coming on as a substitute, and it ended with a penalty-shootout victory in the cup final over Nashville. The MLS team with the fewest points this season lifted the trophy in large part thanks to its new 2023 leading scorer. The Argentine scored in every League Cup match, totaling ten in seven games, immediately raising the bar for speculation about what is possible at the individual and team levels following his departure from Paris Saint-Germain.
If that wasn’t enough, the Argentine also starred in Miami’s US Open Cup semi-final win over FC Cincinnati, delivering two sumptuous crosses for Leonardo Campana to head home in regular time. He then also scored his penalty as Miami progressed in the resulting shootout.
And now, in his debut in the MLS, Messi’s second-half goal put the icing on the cake as Inter Miami defeated the New York Red Bulls 2-0 on Saturday.
Last month, D.C. United manager Wayne Rooney said the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner wouldn’t find it easy in MLS. And, while he is not the only change in the Miami XI this summer, 11 goals in nine games with a trophy to show for it does not scream easy.
Lionel Messi’s debut in the North American version of the sport he has dominated for his entire adult life was nothing short of spectacular. The epilogue is officially underway. Should it continue this way, here are the records to consider from Messi’s first MLS game onward into his first full campaign come 2024.
Messi scored his first ten goals in an Inter Miami shirt quickly, but none of them count towards this record because those seven games were all in the League Cup.
However, with a goal on his MLS debut, he’s very much on track to get to 10 MLS goals faster than anyone else.
Messi will need to score 10 MLS goals in nine games to break the all-time record. Doing it in 10 would equal Carlos Ruiz and Mamadou Diallo.
To be the fastest to five, he will need to start at an accelerated pace, as current Inter Miami teammates Josef Martínez and Ruiz both scored their first five goals in three league games.
Some simple math tells us that to have that record outright, he’d need a hat-trick in at least one of those first two games to get to five goals. If he scores a hat trick on his league debut, he will become the first player in league history to do so. Twenty-one players have scored a brace on their MLS debuts, most recently Nathan Fogaça for the Portland Timbers in May 2022.
Most Career MLS Hat-Tricks
Messi has yet to score a hat-trick for Inter Miami, but he is six behind the MLS record. That’s held by Martínez, who could extend the record while playing alongside Messi.
Four other players have five trebles in the regular season, and Stern John’s total increases to six if the playoffs are included – six in 65 MLS games. Decent.
Messi did not score a hat-trick with PSG, and his last club hat-trick was more than three years ago, but he has 57 career hat-tricks, 48 at club level and 36 in La Liga games. If Messi plays three seasons and Miami build a decent team around him, this record absolutely seems doable.
Most Consecutive Games With a Goal in MLS History (and Other Goalscoring Streaks)
By this point in the list, we should be realizing Josef Martínez was prolific with Atlanta United. His name pops up again here for scoring in 15 straight MLS matches during the 2019 season.
Messi has begun his run on this record, but it will have to last into next season. However, along the way, he would set the league record for the most consecutive games with a goal to start an MLS career. Brian Fernández is the only player to score in his first five games with the Portland Timbers in May and June of 2019.
With this record, it’s also interesting to consider Messi’s personal best-scoring streaks in all club competitions. His best season in all competitions with Barcelona came in the winter of 2012-13, when he scored 16 goals in ten games. He also had two streaks of nine matches there and one of eight. He scored 18 goals on that eight-game streak in February and March of 2012.
Because we have covered all competitions, this obscures the fact that he once scored in 21 consecutive La Liga matches in 2012-13, which begs the question of which of these streaks you would rather witness: 18 goals over eight games in all competitions or 33 over 21 league matches.
That streak lasted from early November to early May, which is more comparable to a manager’s tenure at a club than a player’s scoring streak.
Most MLS Goals in a Season (and Other Single-Season Marks)
It is out of reach with his season debut in August, but the MLS single-season scoring record is 34, set by Carlos Vela for LAFC in 2019, and the Mexican needed only 31 regular-season games to get there. Messi has a maximum of 12 league matches ahead of him in 2023.
But it’s never too early to start considering your 2024 bets. If he reaches 30 next season, he will be the fourth player to do so, alongside Vela, Martínez, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
If you are wondering about goals in your debut season, they are also out of reach. Roy Lassiter’s 27 goals for the Tampa Bay Mutiny in MLS’ inaugural 1996 season are still the most by a player in their first year in the league. He did it in 30 matches, then piled on six more in five post-season games.
Messi’s best chance of breaking the single-season goals record in 2023 may be to win the Golden Boot, which seems absurd to say about someone who has only one league goal with his team 23 games into the season. He could play 12 matches, and if he were to somehow pass current pacesetter Hany Mukhtar (13 goals for Nashville so far) and the other 11 MLS players with at least 10 league goals already, he’d set the mark for the fewest games to become the league’s top scorer.
For context, Diego Rossi scored a league-high 14 goals in 19 games during the 2020 season, but that was a shortened season. Jaime Moreno was the league’s top scorer in 1997, scoring 16 goals in 20 games, but he did not technically win the Golden Boot because the award did not include assists until 2004. If you’re looking for a number without an asterisk here, Landon Donovan scored 20 goals in 25 games in 2008. Messi would need to do it in fewer than half the games.
Most Direct Free-Kick Goals in MLS History
Two of Messi’s League Cup goals were free kicks, bringing his club total to 54 across all competitions in Spain, France, and now the United States, so let us look at Messi as the potential master of the MLS dead-ball scenario.
This is also a potential record for his MLS career as a whole. MLS free-kick records date back to 2003, and Sebastian Giovinco leads the way with 13 free-kick goals for Toronto FC.
Now, how many free-kick goals can Messi score in a season so that we can project this over two or three seasons? Giovinco did his damage in three seasons, and he scored six of those in the 2017 regular season.
Only three players have scored at least four regular-season free kicks in a single season since Messi’s current employer, David Beckham, arrived in America. Giovinco also scored five in 2015, Lucas Zelarayán managed five in 2021 and Beckham got to four in 2012.
The most Messi scored in a season in Europe was eight in 50 games in 2018-19 across all competitions with Barcelona. Six of those came in LaLiga matches, which he repeated in 2017-18. He converted at least four free kicks in four La Liga seasons. So putting his name on the above list is doable, but it would likely take at least three seasons.
Fastest to 10 Assists in MLS History
Goalscoring records are an important part of Messi’s conversation, but they are not the only topic. There may also be some achievable assist numbers. For MLS lifers and global fans of the ’90s game, this brings to mind the unforgettable Carlos Valderrama.
The Colombian playmaker had an MLS record 26 assists in 2000 for Tampa Bay. It took him 15 games in his debut season to record his first ten assists, but that is not quite the record for the quickest to ten. Andy Williams did it in 12 games for the Columbus Crew back in 1999, then Kaku matched that for the New York Red Bulls in 2018.
Messi had one assist in seven League Cup games, but two in the US Open Cup semifinal. He’s also coming off a season at Paris Saint-Germain in which he tallied 16 assists in 32 Ligue 1 matches. Ten of those came in his first 12 matches of the season.
What does all of this mean for Inter Miami’s chances of adding to their League Cup trophy by making it through the Eastern Conference playoffs and extending the season at DRV PNK Stadium? Well, it would take an unprecedented turnaround (but that’s kind of already happening).
Except for the 2020 season’s expanded playoff field, no team has made the playoffs since 2000 (the post-shootout era in MLS) with 22 or fewer points after 22 games. Forty-eight previous teams have fit that criteria and all failed. Miami is on 21 points after 23 games. It may take a Messi record or two to get there.