The Uruguayan striker, who will turn 39 in January, signed a contract to play the 2026 season with the reigning MLS champions, Inter Miami announced Wednesday. ​​Financial terms were not disclosed.

Suárez will join back-to-back MLS MVP Messi for the opening of the team’s new stadium located near Miami International Airport. It will be Suárez’s third season with Inter Miami.

The former Barcelona, ​​Liverpool, Atlético Madrid and Ajax player scored 17 goals with 17 assists in 50 appearances across all competitions this past season but had a reduced role in the last four matches of the MLS Cup playoffs and did not play in the 3-1 victory against the Vancouver Whitecaps in the final.

The veteran joined Inter Miami ahead of the 2024 season and helped the club clinch its first Supporters’ Shield title. He led the team in goals with 25 across all competitions, and his 20 regular-season goals were second most among all players in MLS in 2024 (tied with Messi).

Inter Miami has seen a bit of roster shuffling since the end of the season, with veterans Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets retiring. The club’s roster for next season continued taking shape last week, when it announced the signing of defender Ian Fray to an extension that runs through the 2028-29 season.

The Times of India reported that many ticket-holders said that they failed to see the Inter Miami star at all — either in person or on the stadium’s big screens — despite waiting for hours.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee apologized to the Argentine soccer star for the “mismanagement” of the event.

“I am deeply disturbed and shocked by the mismanagement witnessed today at Salt Lake Stadium,” Banerjee wrote on social media, where she also apologized to fans who had expected more after paying for tickets.

Banerjee said a committee would be constituted to “conduct a detailed enquiry into the incident, fix responsibility, and recommend measures to prevent such occurrences in the future.”

Irate fans – many of whom wore Messi Argentina shirts – threw seats from the stands, then forced their way past security fences onto the field and attempted to cause more damage before overwhelmed security personnel chased them away. Messi had already left.

Messi’s three-day “GOAT India Tour” was to bring the World Cup winner from Kolkata to Hyderabad and then Mumbai before concluding in New Delhi on Monday. He was joined by longtime teammates Luis Suárez and Rodrigo De Paul.

Earlier Saturday, Messi remotely “unveiled” a 21-meter (70-foot) statue of himself in Kolkata.

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Fray had one goal and four assists in 35 appearances across all competitions this season for Inter Miami. He missed the 2021 and 2022 seasons with injuries.

“To continue this journey here feels amazing, this club has put so much trust in me for the last five years I’ve been here,” Fray said. “Going through injuries, they kept their trust in me to sign a new contract and now we’ve won the MLS Cup, so I’m excited for next year.”

Inter Miami declined contract options on Fafa Picault and William Yarbrough, has let Ryan Sailor’s deal expire and has seen the loan of Marcelo Weigandt to the club expire as well.

It continues talking to longtime Lionel Messi teammate Luis Suárez about a new deal and has interest in bringing back four other players whose loans to the club have expired — Allen Obando, Rocco Rios Novo, Baltasar Rodriguez and playoff breakout star Tadeo Allende.

The 38-year-old Argentine star — and captain of the MLS Cup champions — has become the first back-to-back MVP in MLS history, getting announced Tuesday as this year’s winner of the league’s top individual honor.

Messi — thanking his teammates and saying he couldn’t have won the award without them — accepted the trophy at the opening ceremony of his Messi Cup youth tournament, which kicked off Tuesday. That’s why the award announcement was delayed until after the season; Messi wanted kids to be part of it.

“He’s a unicorn, man — not just for what he does on the field,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said Tuesday after the on-field ceremony in misty conditions. “He’s just a special man.”

The back-to-back MVPs represent another first for Messi in what seems like a never-ending list of his career accomplishments and was widely expected, almost assumed after he had a league-best 29 goals along with 19 assists during the regular season.

He also becomes just the second two-time MVP the league has ever seen, joining Preki, the winner of the award in 1997 and 2003. The other winners are all one-time MVP recipients.

“He was fantastic the whole season, with the numbers and also with the commitment,” Inter Miami coach and longtime Messi teammate Javier Mascherano said after Saturday’s MLS final.

Messi played in barely half of Inter Miami’s regular-season games in 2024, and that sparked some doubt as to whether he deserved to win the MVP award.

He won a close vote last year. This year, there was no debate.

Messi got 70.4% of the total vote — the biggest winning total since Toronto’s Sebastian Giovinco in 2015. San Diego’s Anders Dreyer was second with 11.2%, followed by LAFC’s Denis Bouanga (7.3%), Cincinnati’s Evander (4.8%) and Nashville’s Sam Surridge (2.4%).

“There’s something about the way he’s wired,” Garber said of Messi while attending an Inter Miami match earlier in this season’s playoffs. “He’s thinking about the game like nobody else ever has. His intensity and desire to win is what makes him the greatest of all time. There are a lot of really competitive players, but he has this special sauce, this dynamic that has him so focused on doing what he needs to do to win games.”

This award joins dozens of other individual honors in Messi’s career, including eight Ballon d’Or titles, eight Pichichi trophies as La Liga’s top scorer, six La Liga best player nods, three Best FIFA Men’s Player awards, three UEFA Men’s Player of the Year wins, two FIFA World Cup Golden Balls and no fewer than 15 selections as Argentina’s best player in a given year. He’s also been part of winning 47 trophies for club and country — including the 2022 World Cup — making him the most decorated player the men’s game has ever seen.

“The reality,” Mascherano said as the regular season was ending, “is that Leo clears all doubts.”

Messi becomes the sixth player in MLS history to win MVP and a championship in the same season. Of the previous five, only Atlanta United’s Josef Martinez in 2018 won MVP, a title and the Golden Boot as the league’s scoring champion all in the same year, another hat trick of sorts that Messi achieved in 2025.

Indeed, there has been no one like him — in MLS for certain, and quite possibly anywhere.

Forget winning back-to-back MVPs. There have been only four players in MLS history — Carlos Valderrama in 1996 and 1997, Marco Etcheverry in 1998 and 1999, David Villa in 2016 and 2017, and Martinez in 2018 and 2019 — to win the award one year and then even be a finalist for MVP in the following season.

And Messi isn’t planning on leaving Miami anytime soon. He’s signed a three-year extension, meaning he’ll be there when Inter Miami — a franchise that has seen its value explode since his arrival 2½ years ago — opens its new stadium near Miami International Airport next season.

“Leo is a winner. It’s simple as that,” Inter Miami co-owner David Beckham said. “And I know that sounds like an easy and an obvious thing to say because of what he’s won. There’s no player that has probably won what he has won and done it the way he’s done it. There’s more to what makes him the greatest than just what he does on the field. I think everyone in Miami, everyone around the MLS, has seen what he’s done for this league and this city and this country. But he continues to raise that level, and that’s what great players do.”

The phenomenon of having a back-to-back MVP has occurred in each of the other major U.S. pro sports leagues in the past plenty of times, with the most recent instance of each happening fairly recently.

In Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and the New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge have won the National League and American League MVP awards, respectively, in each of the last two seasons; Ohtani won the AL MVP award with the Los Angeles Angels in 2023 as well.

A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has won the WNBA’s MVP award in each of the last two years. Denver’s Nikola Jokic was the most recent NBA player to win MVP back-to-back, doing so in 2021 and 2022. Aaron Rodgers — then of Green Bay — won two straight NFL MVP awards in 2020 and 2021, and Washington’s Alex Ovechkin won the NHL’s Hart Trophy in 2008 and 2009 for the most recent occurrence of someone claiming that award in consecutive years.

But never in MLS — until now.

“Great players always believe that they can win more and raise the level,” Beckham said. “And that’s what Leo’s doing.”

FORT LAUDERDALE — It was nearly two hours after the final whistle sounded on Inter Miami’s first MLS Cup, but Lionel Messi still hadn’t taken off his pink cleats as he stood next to the open door of his black Cadillac Escalade giving an interview.

Messi, the legendary Argentine, wore a gray Inter Miami MLS Cup champions shirt darkened by whatever booze was sprayed in the home team’s locker room. As he finished speaking, he finally slipped the shoes off those magical feet that helped set up all three goals in Inter Miami’s 3-1 win against the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Then he drove out of the stadium — away from the first chapter of his Inter Miami story.

Chase Stadium is an unspectacular temporary venue that was constructed as a stopgap while Inter Miami searched for its permanent home in South Florida. It represents just how early in its existence this club is. Saturday was the end of the team’s sixth season. Messi’s arrival in 2023 took a brand-new organization still searching for a way to marry its ambition to reality and turned it into a global brand.

It felt fitting that the final season at the stadium — and the last game of this first chapter of Messi in Miami — ended with a trophy. It also felt appropriate that it was delivered by Messi’s brilliance.

The first goal opened with him slipping between two defenders with a couple of deft touches, then lifting a little pass to Tadeo Allende to put him into space en route to the goal. Messi then engineered the next two goals, including a brilliant assist where he took the ball off his chest and put the pass through to Allende again out of the air on the next touch.

“Three years ago, I decided to come to MLS, and today we are MLS champions,” Messi said. “This is the moment I had been waiting for, and that we, as a team, were waiting for. It’s very beautiful for all of us.”

But even with the confetti still glittering on the field, thoughts were pivoting to what comes next. As the team celebrated in front of its fans, Inter Miami’s owner, Jorge Mas, could not wipe the smile from his face.

“This is amazing, I have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude,” he said. “It’s the culmination of everything we’ve worked for. It’s been super hard to get here. But finally we’re showing the world what’s possible.”

Messi in Miami 1.0 will be remembered for its star power and an imperfect road to the club’s first championship.

The first thrilling month of Messi in MLS in 2023 culminated with a penalty-kick win over Nashville in the Leagues Cup final. Everything had gone nearly perfectly as Miami slalomed through its first competition with a star coming off a World Cup win. When he lifted the Leagues Cup trophy, it felt as though Miami would be unstoppable going forward.

But Messi missed much of the end of the regular season with an injury, and a Miami team that had been in last place in the league when he arrived could not dig fully out of the hole it was in and missed the playoffs. The next season, Miami was dispatched from the CONCACAF Champions Cup in the quarterfinals by Liga MX’s Monterrey and then, after setting the MLS points record and winning the Supporters’ Shield, was stunned by Atlanta United and sent packing in the first round of the playoffs.

Tata Martino resigned as coach because of personal reasons after that defeat, and Inter Miami suddenly felt unmoored. Going into 2025, even with the two trophies in two years, it felt like a crucial point for Miami to prove that Messi was about more than just commercial impact.

The biggest and most important trophies — CONCACAF Champions Cup and MLS Cup — had eluded the team. It needed one to validate the sporting side of the project.

After Vancouver knocked Miami out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup in the spring, those questions got louder. But Inter’s new coach, Messi’s former Argentina and Barcelona teammate Javier Mascherano, insisted that even in loss, the team was learning.

“Greatness comes from big nights, from victories, comebacks and even from mistakes,” he said in May. “We’ll keep pushing because we believe this team can compete.”

In the summer, Miami was the only MLS team to advance out of the group stage of the Club World Cup. Though it fell to Paris Saint-Germain in the knockout stage, the performance overall seemed to buoy the team.

“We leave with pride to have achieved the goal of making it to the top 16 of the tournament,” Messi posted on his Instagram.

Coming out of the summer, the No. 10 looked to be on a mission to get a trophy — especially because it started to feel like the end of an era.

A former Barcelona star, Messi had been surrounded by a familiar collection of old friends and teammates from the Spanish club since arriving in Miami. Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets made the move along with him that summer. Luis Suárez joined the next season. But at least two of the three will not be back next year, after Alba and Busquets announced their retirements.

Messi, meanwhile, scored eight goals in his next five games after the Club World Cup. Then, beginning in August, he went on a tear, scoring 11 goals with 10 assists in the final 10 games of the regular season. His playoff form (six goals and nine assists in six games) was arguably better.

Messi made it clear he wanted to send his good friends out the way he did Saturday night — with a title.

“I’m happy they can leave with this title,” Messi said.

Inter Miami has successfully closed the door on the first chapter of its Messi era. But ambition isn’t temporary. So what comes next for a club that proclaims, “It ain’t over”?

Suárez, 38, could return as a reserve, sources with direct knowledge of discussions said. Messi’s Argentina teammate Rodrigo De Paul will occupy a designated player spot next to Messi, one of the two vacated by Busquets and Alba.

But the way the team exploded through the playoffs could make Inter Miami rethink what the next version of its build looks like. Messi, Suárez and De Paul still deliver star clout. Will Miami look for another big name to fill its third designated player spot?

One thing can be certain: The move almost certainly will match the ambition that brought Messi to the club.

“We say goodbye today to two generational players,” Mas said. “But we’ll reload.”

Inter Miami will enter its next era by opening a billion-dollar stadium. Miami Freedom Park will be a home more befitting of a Messi-led club. Miami will also have a star above its crest when it steps out onto that field next season. It was no coincidence that Messi went to the under-construction stadium to sign a three-year contract extension, and as he put pen to paper he seemed to embrace the next, and likely final, phase of his playing career.

His transition to being an owner of Inter Miami feels as present as ever, and his recent comments indicate his desire to not just push his club forward, but also his league.

In an interview with NBC, Messi spoke about MLS’ need to grow and change. It put the star player in line with the philosophy of a club that has always pushed back against the league’s more conservative approach to spending.

De Paul’s addition to this team as a nondesignated player, and the workaround needed to pull it off, is proof of that. No doubt Miami will use its success in 2025 as further proof of concept that MLS is a league begging for change — and that the right levels of ambition, spending and star power can help MLS break through the noise.

It’s an idea that feels like it’s building on the risk David Beckham took when he first left Real Madrid to join MLS in 2007. No global stars of Beckham’s age had yet made that kind of leap. His willingness to be the first, and the creation of the designated player rule that came with it, changed the league.

Now, Inter Miami is ushering MLS toward its next iteration, with Messi as the catalyst.

Messi lifting the MLS Cup is an image that will be seen around the world, an advertisement for North American soccer. If Messi in Miami 1.0 was about proving an unrivaled star could help MLS break through globally, Messi in Miami 2.0 is about taking that promise to new heights.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

“Mes-si!” the crowd chanted.

The trophy looked nearly as big as Messi as he walked on the makeshift stage amid his teammates. But there, in that moment, as he held the Major League Soccer championship trophy aloft, as confetti dropped and fireworks flew, Messi didn’t look like the league’s marketing machine or the world’s most recognizable athlete.

He just looked like a star happy to win again. His smile said that much, as did his hugs with teammates and that laugh he carried all over the field for the next hour as family and friends joined in the celebration.

“This is the moment I had been waiting for, and that we, as a team, were waiting for,” Messi said after the 3-1 win against Vancouver. “It’s very beautiful for all of us. They deserved it.”

It didn’t matter if this wasn’t anything close to the biggest of his career. It mattered that he’d won again — that he wanted to win like this here. It mattered more to Inter Miami, sure, because this was the team’s first title and it confirmed all the attention of the past couple of years.

This was a MLS dream matchup, Messi against Vancouver’s Tomas Müller, the German star coming to North America for his final chapter just as Messi has to South Florida.

“They said soccer would never make it in America,’’ MLS commissioner Don Garber said during the trophy ceremony. “Inter Miami fans, has soccer made it?”

Messi’s toeprints were all over this game. He got the opening goal started at midfield by passing to a breaking Tadeo Allende, whose crossing pass was deflected into the net by Vancouver’s Edier Ocampo.

After Vancouver tied it, Messi had a takeaway, then threaded a pass to send Rodrigo DePaul in alone on goal to make it 2-1 in the 72nd minute. DePaul was another Inter Miami special, an Atletico Madrid star who fit under the MLS salary-cap rules in midseason by saying he was just coming for this pro-rated season.

Finally, there was the coupe de Messi on this title game. He played a ball off his chest, and to his left foot, which popped a pass over the Vancouver defense in stoppage time. It was Allende sent in alone on goal this time. His goal in the 96th minute started the celebration.

Messi ran over and hugged him. Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano ran on the field and hugged Jordi Alba until they toppled to the grass.

“These games, they’re decided in a few moments,’’ Vancouver coach Jesper Sorensen said. “And when you play Miami they have players who can take them in those few moments.”

You can pick when this celebration started. Maybe it was when David Beckham picked Miami as his ownership destination in 2018. Maybe it was when baseball passed on Jorge Mas for Derek Jeter in 2017 and Mas and brother Jose bought into Inter Miami and then became full owners with Beckham in 2021.

Maybe it was the summer of 2023 when Beckham was awoken at 5 a.m. in Japan, saying the five-year recruitment of Messi was completed. It was a marketing venture as much as a sporting adventure, and it’s been a success by whatever metric you use.

The league’s social media footprint went from two million to 50 million followers with Messi aboard. Apple TV announced more than 300,000 new subscribers after Messi signed.

Inter Miami has sold out games at Chase Stadium even while raising ticket prices about four-fold. This was the final scheduled game here as the new stadium awaits in Miami. Another assist from Messi, who signed on for three more seasons.

Some of his friends are going. Alba and Sergio Busquets, 37, announced their impending retirement earlier this season and played their final game Saturday. Luis Suarez, 36, was benched during the first-round series against Nashville and might be done.

The exit of big names is part of the MLS story. But Messi isn’t leaving. He didn’t need a MLS title. But his smile in the aftermath showed, as Mascherano said, “He came here to win this cup.”

He didn’t need an MLS Cup.

But he wanted one — and got it.

Messi and Inter Miami have completed their ascent, beating the Vancouver Whitecaps 3-1 on Saturday in the MLS Cup final for the franchise’s first championship. It came 2 1/2 years after the legend arrived in South Florida, a move that stunned plenty of onlookers at the time.

He set up the title-clinching goal with a 72nd-minute assist to Rodrigo De Paul, a play where Messi stole the ball and threaded a pass through a tiny gap in a wall of Vancouver defenders. De Paul got it in stride, pushed it into the far corner of the net — and Messi went airborne to hop into his arms a few seconds later, all smiles.

And as the final minutes ticked away, Inter Miami’s pink-clad fans — most wearing Messi’s No. 10 on their backs — stood and stomped and cheered. South Florida has seen NFL and NBA and Major League Baseball and NHL titles in the past.

It’s a soccer town now, too. Messi made that happen. Tadeo Allende scored in the sixth minute of stoppage time — off another Messi assist, of course — to make it 3-1.

Inter Miami became the 16th franchise in the league’s 30-year history to win an MLS title. And this extends a run of parity for MLS, which has seen five different franchises win championships in the last five years and eight franchises claim a title in the last nine seasons — only Columbus has won twice in that span.

It was also the culmination of a 12-year odyssey for David Beckham, part of Inter Miami’s ownership group.

He retired as a player in 2013 and his MLS contract said he could start a franchise at a discounted rate when his career ended. Beckham chose Miami and it took him years to finally make it happen; it wasn’t until January 2018 when the franchise was formally born, after he partnered with Miami businessmen Jorge Mas and Jose Mas, and even then the team didn’t have a stadium plan.

The team started play in 2020, and Messi arrived halfway through the 2023 season. Inter Miami was in last place in MLS at the time.

And then Messi arrived. The last-place team then now runs the league.

“It’s been an incredible journey,” Beckham said.

The trophy is Messi’s 47th for club and country, extending his global men’s soccer record. He’s now won at least 21 titles in one-match final situations, many of them with the core of this team — Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Luis Suarez and Javier Mascherano, his longtime Barcelona teammates.

MESSI LIFTS YET ANOTHER TROPHY

WHAT A MOMENT FOR @INTERMIAMICF AND THE ARGENTINA LEGEND AS THEY WIN @MLS CUP pic.twitter.com/DVozyraxrv

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) December 6, 2025

Busquets and Alba are retiring and got to go out as champions. Suarez’s future is uncertain. Mascherano is the coach now, one who changed Inter Miami’s lineup and tactics halfway through the season with this moment in mind.

And the 38-year-old Messi, the 2024 MLS MVP who seems like a lock to win the award again this season, still is like none other in the biggest moments with a contract that could have him playing with Miami into his early 40s.

“He’s not just here to enjoy living in Miami,” Beckham said. “His wife and the kids love Miami, but he’s come here to win, and that’s really what Leo is all about. He wants to win. He’s got that dedication, the loyalty that he shows to his teammates, to the city, to the club. Leo is a winner. It’s simple as that.”

Inter Miami went up 1-0 on an own goal in the eighth minute, before Vancouver tied it in the 60th on a score by Ali Ahmed. Another Vancouver shot hit both posts about two minutes later but stayed out, and Inter Miami got the lead for good when Messi found De Paul.

And when it was over, Messi went over to the Inter Miami supporters section and threw both his hands in the air. It was a moment 2 1/2 years in the making.

Vancouver has already bested Inter Miami in a big competition this year, so the Whitecaps feel there’s really no reason they can’t do it again in the MLS Cup final.

Back in late April, the Whitecaps downed Lionel Messi & Co. 5-1 on aggregate in the two-legged CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinals. The first game ended in a 2-0 Vancouver victory at BC Place, followed by a 3-1 win in Florida.

“We’ve just got to trust our game. We’ve gone down there before and played them here, too, this year and put on a great performance, got two really good results. So we’ve proved that we can do it when the stakes are already high in a semifinal. Now, it’s the final,” midfielder Ryan Gauld said. “So we have to go do it again.”

At that time, Vancouver was on a roll, sitting atop the league standings with just one loss through 10 games. Striker Brian White already had six of his team-leading 16 goals this season.

The Whitecaps would go on to finish 18-7-9, second in the Western Conference to FC San Diego — the team they beat 3-1 in the conference finals last weekend to reach Saturday’s championship match in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

It is the first time Vancouver will play for the MLS Cup. Gauld and his teammates already know the challenges posed by a team featuring Messi, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Luis Suarez.

“I think the threat they bring is obvious with the individuals that they’ve got that can make a piece of magic out of nothing. They’re the kind of players you can keep quiet for eight, nine minutes, and then they just spark into life,” Gauld said. “So it’s going to be about staying switched on and then doing our job for the 90, 120 minutes, whatever it is.”

Last season, the Whitecaps finished eighth in the standings and routed Portland in a wild-card game before falling to LAFC in the first round of the playoffs.

Vancouver has qualified for the playoffs in three of the past five years but hasn’t advanced out of the first round in that span. Since the Whitecaps joined the league in 2011, the furthest they’ve gone is the quarterfinals, in 2015 and 2017.

This is Vancouver’s first season under Danish coach Jesper Sørensen, who has kept the team focused amid the uncertainty of a possible sale and the addition of a German superstar.

Vancouver’s owners announced late last year that the club was for sale. Greg Kerfoot has been the owner since 2002, when it was part of the North American Soccer League. Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and former NBA star Steve Nash joined Kerfoot in 2008 before the Whitecaps became part of MLS in 2011. Mallett suggested in August that the group’s strategy may have shifted to adding a new partner.

There’s also the matter of the team’s stadium. The Whitecaps’ lease at BC Place expires at the end of the year and there’s not a lot of movement on a new soccer-specific stadium. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said during his annual State of the League address that the team is looking for a move favorable lease, or it might have to make “tough decisions.”

The Whitecaps also added World Cup winner Thomas Müller this summer after 17 seasons with Bayern Munich. But rather than upstaging his teammates, Müller has taken on the role of facilitator.

“We have not only one player, we have so many strong guys, so many qualities,” Müller said after the victory over San Diego. “We have to bring it together, and we are growing, we’re learning. I’m very happy to be part of this, to bring my experience to the group.”

Sørensen said he never really expected the Whitecaps to be playing for the MLS Cup.

“But as the season went by, you start seeing that you have the quality to maybe take it far,” he said. “And now here we are.”

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Messi and Inter Miami will take on Thomas Muller — one of his longtime rivals — and the Vancouver Whitecaps for Major League Soccer’s championship. It’s the first final for both clubs, which means MLS is about to have a first-time champion.

“We know it’s going to be a very, very tough game. … It’s going to be a very, very special final,” Messi said in remarks distributed by the team Thursday.

But for Messi, it’s the end of a couple eras. It’s the last match planned at Inter Miami’s current home, with the team set to move into a still-under-construction stadium near Miami International Airport next season. And barring some serious changes of heart, it’ll be the last time he gets to play with longtime teammates Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets — they’re both retiring after Saturday — and possibly Luis Suarez as well.

“I’m very grateful for the career I’ve had, the teams I’ve played for, everything I’ve learned, everything I’ve enjoyed, and well, it’s been a privilege,” Alba said in Spanish on Thursday. “Yes, it’s a week with a lot of emotions, knowing that it’s going to be my last game … and hopefully, I end my career in the best possible scenario, in a final and we win.”

It’s not like Messi needs this win for his legacy; Argentina’s star — a winner of 46 championships for club and country worldwide, the most in history — is widely considered the greatest player ever and Saturday’s outcome won’t help or hurt that reputation. Same goes for Muller, the German great who has been on the winning end of a World Cup final in which he played against Messi (and Javier Mascherano, now the Inter Miami coach).

“It’s good that this final has come about and that we’re facing each other again,” Messi said. “We’ve already faced Vancouver and we understand the caliber of their team.”

That said, Saturday will bring at least one first: If Vancouver wins, Muller will be the first player to win a World Cup and an MLS Cup. If Inter Miami wins, Messi, Rodrigo De Paul and Busquets will become the first trio to say they were both a World Cup and an MLS champion.

“We are going to have four World Cup winners on the pitch,” Mascherano said. “I think it’s very, very interesting for the league.”

Muller — part of more than 30 trophy wins for club and country himself — was asked how the MLS Cup ranks on his list.

“At the moment, I rank it No. 1,” Muller said. “Because it’s the only final that we are talking about. It’s upcoming. At the moment, for me, this final on Saturday is the most important thing in my life.”

He then paused a bit.

“That’s a good line, ah?” he asked, laughing at his joke.

But clearly, the MLS Cup is something that both teams want badly. For Inter Miami, it’s a chance to prove that bringing in the Barcelona foursome — Messi, Alba, Suarez and Busquets — was all worth it. For Vancouver, which beat Inter Miami twice this season in the CONCACAF Champions League, it’s a chance to win a trophy and go through Messi to get it done.

“Obviously, they were much better than us in April,” Mascherano said. “But the situation is not the same. We are in a different situation. We arrive to this final with confidence, with some different players. And we know that they have a very, very good team.”

Of late …

Inter Miami is 10-2-1 in its last 13 matches, going back to the regular season. The team has been particularly dominant in three win-or-go-home matches during these MLS playoffs, winning those by a combined score of 13-1.

Vancouver is 7-1-5 in its last 13 matches and has given up a total of 17 goals in its last 17 matches against MLS opponents.

Home edge

The team playing in its home stadium, or home market, has won 11 of the last 14 MLS Cup titles. Of the three that lost in that scenario, two fell in penalty kicks.

Vancouver won at Inter Miami in April in the CONCACAF semifinals. Inter Miami is 16-2-2 across all competitions at home since.

“We’ve been ready for this this whole season,” Vancouver midfielder Sebastian Berhalter said. “The pressure, it comes with it. It’s a privilege and it’s fun and I think you know our guys are going to lean into it and enjoy it. Home team, away team, I don’t think it matters.”

And he knows what it takes to win in those moments, too.

The 2025 MLS Cup final — Messi and Inter Miami vs. Müller and the Vancouver Whitecaps — is going to draw a few comparisons from a personnel standpoint to the 2014 World Cup final and 2010 World Cup quarterfinal matches between Argentina and Germany.

Germany, with Müller, won both times. Messi played in those matches for Argentina, as did Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano. They’ll all meet again on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, with Müller surely knowing that facing Messi doesn’t automatically mean a loss.

“It’s not about Messi against Thomas Müller,” he told reporters after Vancouver’s 3-1 win over San Diego in the Western Conference final on Saturday night. “It’s Miami against the Whitecaps.”

Then he added, “Maybe they rely a little bit more on him than we do on me, because we are such a good group.”

What Messi thinks of the matchup — he’s gone head to head with Müller 10 times in various competitions, and his side has won only three of those — is a bit of mystery and likely may stay that way. Inter Miami rarely makes Messi available for interviews.

This much, however, is known: Messi came to Inter Miami midway through 2023 with the goal of winning an MLS Cup, something that seemed far-fetched at the time considering when he joined the club it was at the bottom of the league. A win on Saturday would fulfill his quest and would cap a season when Messi also won MLS’ Golden Boot as the top scorer — plus, more than likely, a second consecutive league MVP award.

“Even though he’s the best in history … it’s unfair to believe that he’s going to win every game,” Mascherano said after Inter Miami’s 5-1 romp past New York City FC in the Eastern Conference final on Saturday night. “Everybody has raised their level.”

The MLS final comes as part of a huge week for soccer in North America.

The FIFA World Cup draw for next year’s men’s tournament in the U.S., Canada and Mexico is on Friday in Washington along with the initial awarding of that organization’s peace prize that many expect the group to award to President Donald Trump. (“On the 5th of December, you will see,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said a few weeks ago when asked if Trump would win the award.) MLS, if past form holds, seems likely to announce its MVP award winner this week. And college soccer is nearing its championship rounds; the men’s Division I quarterfinals are this coming weekend along with the start of the women’s Division I College Cup.

It’s not like either Messi or Müller needs a win on Saturday to complete some sort of validation. Their resumes and legacies were secured long ago: Both are World Cup winners, both are Champions League winners, both are Club World Cup winners.

But like Messi, Müller came to MLS — he joined Vancouver four months ago — seeking a title in that league to add to the list. The chance has arrived.

“I enjoy watching him,” Müller said in an on-field interview for Apple TV following Vancouver’s win Saturday night. “I have the feeling Miami’s a very strong team. We saw them beating New York in quite a really strong manner. It’s a big final. I wished for this final. And here we go. I think it’s great for everyone.”