The regular season was defined by…
Would a much-loved attacker in his mid-thirties who’s achieved so much in the game still have the hunger to perform and score, or was he joining MLS simply for the money and a beachfront lifestyle? Arriving from Europe during the season, could he adjust quickly? Would his brilliance almost single-handedly haul his struggling club into the playoffs? Yes, the Billy Sharp storylines were compelling all right. Lionel Messi was also fairly interesting. Tom Dart
Messi. 2023 will forever be remembered as the year the GOAT arrived in Major League Soccer. Ok, so some of the best moments happened in the Leagues Cup and US Open Cup, but Lionel Messi’s decision to join Inter Miami represented a seismic shift in the American soccer landscape as a whole. It has the potential to change everything. Watching Messi in MLS will never get old. It hints at what the league could one day become. Graham Ruthven
Best team that didn’t make the playoffs…
“Best” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence since MLS is a league where nearly two-thirds of the teams reach the postseason, meaning that, by definition, below-average sides are rewarded. All of the sides that missed out had losing records. (So did some that qualified.) Despite finishing with the third-worst points tally in MLS, it has to be Miami, a roster with Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Josef Martínez and DeAndre Yedlin. TD
Inter Miami. They ran out of steam towards the end, but the team that finished the regular season wasn’t the one that played the first half under Phil Neville. Inter Miami simply gave themselves too much ground to make up. A full year of Messi, Alba, Busquets and Tata Martino would have seen the South Florida club comfortably finish over the playoff line in the Eastern Conference. When everyone was fit and firing, Inter Miami were the most exhilarating team in MLS. GR
Related: MLS has attracted a new generation of stars. But will they stay?
Your dark horses are…
Houston Dynamo. Ben Olsen’s side have only lost once since being thumped 3-0 at home by Minnesota on 12 July and a fourth-place finish in the West gives them home advantage over Real Salt Lake, whom they crushed 3-0 in Utah in August. They won the Open Cup by beating Miami in Florida, the savvy Olsen is a former MLS coach of the year, the defense is stingy and veteran midfield talisman Héctor Herrera has 17 assists, second-most in MLS.