So 2024 is just about gone, and what a year it was in Major League Soccer.
Leo Messi and Inter Miami wrote new history into the record books — but so did a certain Philly teenager less than half his age. A founding club with a long tradition of postseason pain produced a stunning Audi MLS Cup Playoffs run. Some cheeky wildlife (yes, you read that right) stole the spotlight in May. And a new champion, albeit a rather familiar one if you’ve been following this league for a while, was crowned at the end of it all.
With preseason 2025 only a matter of days away, the whole roller coaster will crank up again very soon, this time with newcomers San Diego FC welcomed to the fray just in time for MLS’s pearl anniversary. But first, let’s take a spin back through the league’s 29th trip around the sun, from the legendary to the lighthearted.
Note: We’re thinking both literally and historically here, which is to say that these picks include instants in matches as well as multiple occasions we’ll look back on as a collective moment in time.
Messi’s headline-grabbing midseason 2023 arrival in North America was driven to fever pitch by the Herons’ rousing run to the Leagues Cup trophy. Yet that tournament surge turned out to be a standalone event, as he and his old friends Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba proved unable to reverse Miami’s profound struggles in league play.
It was a completely different story in ‘24. Gerardo “Tata” Martino’s re-engineered squad were utterly dominant in the regular season, scoring an MLS-best 79 goals and losing just four of their 34 matches en route to the Supporters’ Shield title and a new single-season points record of 74. Fittingly, La Rosanegra clinched the Shield by beating the defending MLS Cup champs Columbus Crew in their own house on Oct. 2.
They then broke the points record in cinematic fashion, thrashing New England 6-2 in their regular-season finale on Decision Day two and a half weeks later, graced by Messi’s first MLS hat trick — which took his season total to 20g/16a despite being limited to only 19 appearances due to injuries and international duty with Argentina, and sealed his capture of the Landon Donovan MLS MVP award.
Seeking to help better inform fans about the decisions made by on-field referees and their colleagues in the booth, MLS implemented in-stadium Video Review announcements for 2024, and by late June it had given us one of the season’s funniest incidents.
St. Louis CITY SC supporters thought they’d have a lead to celebrate when Dujic turned on his microphone following a review of an initially disallowed goal by winger Nökkvi Thórisson in a match against Atlanta United. The Canadian ref had a plot twist in store, though, one he revealed via a surprisingly dramatic delivery that soon went viral, watched with delight by millions of footy lovers around the world.
Thanks for the memes, Filip!
Wilfried Nancy’s Crew built on their impressive ‘23 MLS Cup win with sustained excellence this season, reaching the Concacaf Champions Cup final (where a nasty case of food poisoning rendered them vulnerable to CF Pachuca, posing an all-time ‘what if’ for the rest of us), pushing Miami hard in the Shield race and hoisting Leagues Cup hardware.
It wasn’t just the title — it was the way the Yellow Football Team did it, racking up 14 goals in five games with champagne soccer as they swept aside some of the league’s top teams. There was a three-goal comeback from 2-0 down against Miami, then a tense penalty-kicks shootout dispatching of New York City FC, followed by an assured win over the Philadelphia Union and capped with a 3-1 destruction of LAFC in an MLS Cup rematch in the tourney final.
Afterwards Nancy spoke of urging his players to “try to do everything to be limitless,” and while their title defense would later fall short (more on that later), that swashbuckling mentality figures to inform their approach to 2025, too.
How many North American teenage prospects have we soccer fans ever been on a first-name basis with? It’s a short list, to be sure — though it grew by one this summer.
MLS’s transformation into a fertile cradle for rising young talent passed a poignant milestone on July 17, when homegrown Philly phenom Cavan Sullivan — whose older brother Quinn is already a first-team regular in his own right at 20 — made his MLS debut in a 5-1 win over New England at the tender age of 14 years and 293 days old, breaking the record set by Freddy Adu 20 years prior.
This was not only MLS history: Cavan is also the youngest-ever player among top North American professional sports leagues as well as the “big five” European soccer leagues, UEFA Champions League and Europa League, dating back to 1988.
“There's no such thing as too old or too young, there’s only good and bad, and he's special,” said Union coach Jim Curtin postgame. “We can see that tonight.”
A new chapter was written in MLS’s surprisingly hefty history of raccoons in May, when a lively little scamp, quickly dubbed ‘Raquinho’ (or is it ‘Raccinho’?) by the MLS Season Pass crew, loped onto the pitch at Subaru Park without permission during the Union’s home clash vs. NYCFC.
For what seemed like an age, the players on the pitch became spectators just like the rest of us, looking on as the clever creature evaded capture by stadium personnel, roaming freely across the grass for nearly three minutes before finally getting corralled under an empty trash can.
The incident drew global attention, with late-night talk show heavyweight Stephen Colbert marveling at the resourceful raccoon as he shared the footage with his audience and Topps producing an official trading card of the breakout star.
What’s in the water in Cincy? Luca Orellano became the second straight FC Cincinnati player to win the MLS Goal of the Year award, following in the footsteps of his teammate and countryman Lucho Acosta with this jaw-dropping chip over goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois — from, what, 70, 80 yards out? — in a 4-1 rout of CF Montréal on Aug. 31.
The footage speaks for itself: just an incredible goal, powered by audacious resourcefulness and superb technique. And it was just one of several stunners scored by Orellano, who totaled 10g/7a in his first season in MLS, plus another in the playoffs.
Sure, Messi won MVP and drew the lion’s share of worldwide attention, but another FC Barcelona ex turned out to be box office in his own right: Riqui Puig.
Not only did the LA Galaxy maestro run the show for the eventual league champs all year, tallying 13 goals and 15 assists in 29 regular-season games (then another 4g/3a in the playoffs) and leading the league in touches, passes attempted, passes completed, fouls sustained and multi-assist performances en route to a spot in the MLS Bext XI presented by Continental Tire. He also aimed squarely at the necks of anyone who publicly doubted or criticized him or his team, trolling, mocking and/or blasting pundits, commentators, fans and all else who wandered into his crosshairs, be it via Tweets, spicy interview quotes or choreographed goal celebrations.
The main-character energy was so strong that even a torn ACL in the Western Conference final — where Puig kept playing on the injury, notching the assist on Dejan Joveljić's dramatic late winner — couldn’t keep him out of the spotlight as the Gs won their sixth MLS Cup title in his honor.
MPF. That acronym might not mean much to most readers. But it’s an all-too-familiar ironic lament for the most long-suffering supporters of the New York Red Bulls. It originally stood for “Metro Playoff Fever,” the tagline for an ill-fated postseason promotional campaign decades ago when the side were known as the MetroStars, the ‘F’ quickly devolving into “Failure” as the founding MLS club fell short year after year after year.
The story changed, and then some, in 2024. Led by Swedish attacking star Emil Forsberg, who set the tone by declaring “f--- it, we can win. Why can’t we?” in the leadup to their Round One meeting with the defending champions from Columbus, RBNY swept the Crew with two inspired performances.
Riding some of the most rugged defensive performances in recent playoffs history, the Red Bulls kicked on with road upsets of their crosstown rivals NYCFC and Orlando City to reach MLS Cup presented by Audi for just the second time in their history, where they pushed the heavily-favored Galaxy right to the brink in a 2-1 final that belied the gap in regular-season performance between the two teams.
Take a glance back up the page at item No. 10 in our list. All that dominance Miami relentlessly produced over the course of the regular season would usually rank much higher here. Except that the Herons fell victim to the greatest upset — and that’s statistical fact, not just subjective opinion — in the history of the league at the first stage of their playoffs campaign.
It came at the hands of a giant fallen on hard times. After Atlanta United finished a disappointing ninth in the Eastern Conference table, limping into the final playoff berth with a 10W-14L-10D record, no one gave the Five Stripes a ghost of a chance to knock off Messi & Co. But from his defend-and counter tactics to the ‘F--- ‘Em All’ rallying cry, interim head coach Rob Valentino made all the right moves, while grizzled veterans Brad Guzan and Dax McCarty conjured up one clutch performance after another to inspire their teammates.
After an agonizingly tight loss in Game 1, ATL drew level with a comeback 2-1 win before 68,455 loud fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a reminder of their potent 2018 team’s MLS Cup triumph, before stunning Miami with yet another comeback win, a sensational 3-2 stunner in the decisive Game 3 of the Round One series.
“Come down here, backs against the wall, find a way to get a result,” said Guzan afterwards. “Feels good.”
With Miami sent packing way ahead of schedule, the path to MLS Cup would run through Southern California, where Puig had shaped the Galaxy into the highest-scoring side in playoffs history, coach Greg Vanney pushing the throttle to empower his team’s loaded attack even at the risk of exposing their previously-rickety back line.
Though their Spanish No. 10 was ruled out by the season-ending knee injury he suffered in the conference final, LA did not waste the opportunity presented to them. Vanney adjusted his central midfield to address the threats posed by the Red Bulls’ press-oriented transition game, setting the stage for a man-of-the-match performance from Gastón Brugman as the Gs snatched a 2-0 lead before a quarter of an hour had passed.
RBNY’s rally fell just short, and when the final whistle blew at Dignity Health Sports Park, LA’s ‘Race for Seis’ had completed, a one-time dynasty in possession of their MLS-best sixth title exactly 10 years on from their last championship. And the question posed incessantly for more than a year could finally, undeniably be answered in the affirmative: The Galaxy are indeed back.
