Messi mania endures. When Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer in 2023, skeptics wondered if he was just playing out his string in the U.S., as other international greats (David Beckham, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney) had done before. Messi, however, took the U.S. by storm, going on a goal-scoring tear upon his arrival, causing surges in MLS attendance and viewership, and ultimately turning Inter Miami from a cellar dweller into the 2025 MLS Cup champs: he had two assists in Inter’s 3-1 win over Vancouver and was named MVP of the match. Now, another World Cup, perhaps his last one, awaits Messi, 38, in his adopted home. He stamped his legacy at the last World Cup, in Qatar in 2022, when he won his first title and was named best player of the tournament. Back-to-back championships for Argentina—no country has achieved that since Brazil with Pelé in 1958 and 1962—would somehow send Messi even higher into the stratosphere and resolve the GOAT debate once and for all.
