NEW YORK — For a second straight year, Lionel Messi outscored everyone in MLS. The Inter Miami CF forward took the 2026 Golden Boot presented by Audi with 26 goals, Major League Soccer announced Saturday, a total no other player matched. No player had ever won the award in consecutive seasons before him.
Petar Musa of FC Dallas came closest. Musa’s total was 22, four behind Messi. Nashville SC forward Sam Surridge took third with 21 goals. It is his second Golden Boot. Winning it twice puts him in rare company. The list of multiple winners in league history has only six names on it.
His fourth MLS season brought the 26 goals, scored across 31 regular-season matches. No one scored at a better rate: 0.84 goals per game. His 43 goal contributions were also a league high. He had six multi-goal games, tied for the most in the league, and ranked second in goals per 90 minutes, at 0.88.
Penalties barely figured in it. Just one of them was a penalty. The remaining 25 non-penalty goals are the second-most ever scored in a single MLS season. The record above them is also his: 28, from a year ago. Six times, his goal won the match — tied for the second-highest total in the league.
Two seasons at the top
He scored 29 last season. Add the two years together and the total is 55 goals, a figure bettered across two seasons by only one player in league history: Josef Martínez, who scored 58 in 2018 and 2019. Scoring at least 25 goals in back-to-back seasons is nearly as rare — Messi is only the second player to do it.
Stretch the view to three seasons and Messi’s total is 75 regular-season goals, the second-most in a three-season span in league history. He joins Denis Bouanga as the only players to score at least 20 goals in three consecutive seasons.
Output beyond goals
The playmaking numbers stand out as well. Messi is the first player in league history to record at least 40 goal contributions in consecutive seasons, and his 43 in 2026 were the third-most in a single season in league history. Across the three seasons, the contributions add up to 127. The nearest mark over a three-season span belongs to Evander, whose 98 from 2024-26 leave him 29 behind. Measured per 90 minutes since he arrived in Miami in 2023, Messi’s rate of goal contributions is 1.69.
A career of scoring titles
Scoring titles are nothing new for Messi. In Spain, he won the Pichichi Trophy as La Liga’s top scorer eight times during his years with FC Barcelona. In Europe, he topped the Champions League scoring charts on six occasions, and his six European Golden Shoe awards remain unmatched by any other player.
He arrived in Miami in July 2023, and the team trophies have followed: Leagues Cup in 2023, the Supporters’ Shield a year later, and the club’s first MLS Cup in 2025. The individual honors have stacked up too, including the Landon Donovan MLS MVP award in 2024 and again in 2025, making him the first player to win that award in consecutive years.
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