Lionel Messi did not win a single MLS Player of the Month award this season: Can he still win the MVP?

Lionel Messi closed the 2026 MLS regular season with one of the most productive campaigns in the league, but there is one thing missing from his résumé this year: a monthly award. As the focus turns to the end-of-season honors, the question is whether that absence changes anything in the race for the MVP, an award he already holds twice.

The latest Player of the Month honor went to Orlando City’s Antoine Griezmann, who was named the winner for October and November. According to MLS, the French forward tied for the league lead with six goals and 10 goal contributions in seven starts during that period.

Griezmann joins Nashville’s Sam Surridge, San Jose’s Timo Werner, Cincinnati’s Evander, who won twice, and Philadelphia’s Cavan Sullivan on a list of 2026 winners that does not include Messi. His absence from the list is unusual, since it is the first time since he joined Miami in 2023 that he has not won at least one monthly award, according to Inter Miami insider José Armando.

His numbers, however, tell a different story. Messi finished with 26 goals in 31 appearances, enough to win the Golden Boot for the second year in a row and become the first player in league history to do so in consecutive seasons, and added 17 assists for 43 goal contributions, the most in MLS, according to ESPN.

That is why he is still considered the favorite for the MVP. MLS’s own power rankings had been building his case for a third straight award, but the vote may not be as one-sided as in other years.

Nashville’s Hany Mukhtar, who has 17 goals and eight assists, led his team to the Supporters’ Shield and is the main alternative. With the playoffs about to begin, the vote will decide whether Messi’s season without monthly awards ends up mattering at all.

Precedents for an MVP without a monthly award

Messi would not be the first player to win the MVP without a Player of the Month award along the way. According to Armando, there are two precedents. The first is David Villa, who was named MVP in 2016 with New York City FC, a season in which none of the monthly awards went to him.

The winners that year included his own teammate Frank Lampard, in July, along with players like Joao Plata, Fanendo Adi, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Nicolas Lodeiro, but the Spanish forward was not among them.

The second is Diego Valeri, who won the MVP in 2017 with the Portland Timbers after scoring 21 goals and becoming the first player in the club’s history to take the award. Valeri did not appear among the monthly winners between March and October of that season, which included Villa himself, who won the award in June 2017.

Those precedents show that going without a monthly award does not rule a player out of the MVP race, especially when his full-season production is strong. For Messi, that production includes a Golden Boot-winning 26 goals, 17 assists and the most goal contributions in the league, so the lack of a monthly trophy may not matter as much as it seems.