No surprise here: Lionel Messi is among the finalists for Major League Soccer's MVP award for this season. In addition to Messi, Inter Miami teammate Luis Suarez is among five finalists for the Landon Donovan MLS MVP announced on Thursday. The others include Evander from the Portland Timbers, Cucho Hernandez of the Columbus Crew and D.
C. United's Christian Benteke, who also won this season's Golden Boot for most goals. Inter Miami finished the season atop the Eastern Conference standings at 22-4-8 with an MLS-record 74 points, winning the Supporters Shield for best regular-season record.
Despite missing a chunk of games because of injury and national team commitments with Argentina, Messi still led Miami with 20 goals and 16 assists in 19 appearances. “Yeah, he missed some time this year with us, the Copa America injuries and (for) him able to come back and still have that impact — I think it was 30-some-odd goal contributions — he had a great year,” Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender said. “There are plenty of other players across the league who had great years as well.
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But the fact that he did what he did this year was pretty amazing.” Suarez, who joined his former Barcelona teammate in Miami this season, had 20 goals and was also a finalist for newcomer of the year. Inter Miami is set to play Atlanta United in the first round of the playoffs starting Friday night.
Evander had 15 goals and 19 assists for the Timbers, who were eliminated from the playoffs.