Is Lionel Messi deserving of MVP?
Yahoo Sports contributors Christian Polanco and Alexis Guerreros discuss whether or not Lionel Messi is deserving of MLS MVP and highlight Tai Baribo as another strong candidate. Hear the full conversation on the 'The Cooligans' podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.
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For the midseason, it feels a little weird to pick Messi because he hasn't really, he he didn't do what he did last season.
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They've had really long stretches.
uh, he, he has had really long stretches without like goal contributions.
So it's odd because last season he missed a lot of games through injuries, still won MVP, but this season he is playing in those games and he's not getting all the stats.
Yeah, but.
We have to decide what do we mean by valuable.
Valuable to the team, valuable to the league, valuable as in he's in the league and so the fans are watching, valuable in the sense that when he's on the pitch, defenders are drawn to him naturally, and he creates space for everyone else.
To me it just doesn't make sense to say anyone other than Messi, and I don't care if people think like, oh, attack or whatever, he's just valuable in every shape or every time.
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Camera hits him, I hear cha ching.
So as far as I'm concerned, he's the most.
Yeah, there's not much we can do to change your mind if that's gonna be your barometer.
I understand the argument for someone else.
Who do you have?
Uh, I have Tyribo.
13 goals, 1 assist.
Uh, yeah, the numbers are better for uh for Messi, but It it it's looking like just moving forward, uh, that he's just gonna be um an important part to almost every single goal that is scored by the Philadelphia Union, and I, I had seen him on pace to what, like scored 30 to like to break the record, right?
He's got a goal per start.
Sure, yeah, I think they were asking him like, well, like how many, how many goals do you have it like in mind every every season?
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And he's like, I have a I have a there's a certain amount of goals I have in mind.
And they're like, alright, well how many is it?
He's like, I'm not telling you it's just it's just like a little just a little secret personal number, um, but, but he's been fantastic.
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