Before Lionel Messi: The only two-time winner of MLS Most Valuable Player award
The Inter Miami captain looks set to retain the league’s MVP award, becoming just the second player to win it twice.
Lionel Messi took center stage in Inter Miami’s 4-0 victory over Atlanta United on Saturday evening, strengthening his case to be crowned MLS Most Valuable Player for a record-equaling second time.
Despite having been called up for Argentina’s game against Venezuela at Hard Rock Stadium on Friday, Messi opted to stay with Inter Miami. He scored twice and provided an incisive pass to set up Jordi Alba’s goal, taking him to 26 goals and 15 assists for the season.
With one game to go Messi leads the Golden Boot rankings and he is the favorite to clinch the MLS MVP award for a second straight season. Doing so would make him the first player to retain the award and only the second in the 30-year history of the MLS to win it twice.
The only previous repeat winner won his awards in the early years of MLS and had a nomadic career that took him from Belgrade to the Kansas City, via two spells in the Premier League.
Predrag Radosavljević, widely known as Preki, began his professional career with Red Star Belgrade in his native Serbia before moving to the United States to join indoor team Tacoma Stars. He had a prolific seven years in the United Soccer League before spells with Everton and Portsmouth in England.
In 1996 he returned to the U.S. to join the Kansas City Wizards for the inaugural season of MLS. He was crowned MLS Most Valuable Player for the first time in 1997 and went on to lead the Wizards to the MLS Cup and the Supporters’ Shield in 2000.
Preki spent a year with the Miami Fusion before returning to Kansas City and was once again one of the league’s top players. In 2003, at the age of 40, he won the MLS Golden Boot and was crowned MVP for a second time.
The Serbian midfielder retired at the end of the 2004 season and no player since has managed to match his record of two MLS MVP awards. This year, more than two decades on, Lionel Messi may finally be the player to replicate that incredible feat.
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