The Eastern Conference’s bottom-placed Inter Miami will be hoping that Lionel Messi’s Leagues Cup explosion will carry over to MLS competition as they return to league play. Everyone anticipates the Argentine to maintain the pace he set when he arrived in the United States, scoring 10 goals in seven games.
Another peculiarity also jumps out. Daniel Gazdag, a forward with the Philadelphia Union, has scored 10 goals so far this season, just one of which came from an open play; the other nine all came from penalties. A further penalty would surpass the current mark and put Gazdag alone at the top of the list, which is a joint record for the most penalties committed by one player in an MLS season.
Golden Boot odds in MLS for 2024:
After scoring one goal in each of his first two games, the chances on Lionel Messi winning the league’s Golden Boot have changed to a more accurate representation of his condition. Previously, several sports bookies had set him as the favorite. Messi would likely miss two or three of Inter Miami’s next 10 regular-season games due to international service, leaving him with just seven or eight games to make up a 12-goal deficit. To say the least, unlikely.
With the lowest odds, current leaders Hany Mukhtar and Luciano Acosta are in a close race with Denis Bouanga and Georgios Giakoumakis.
In the MLS, how many goals has Lionel Messi scored?
Lionel Messi has a lot of catching up to do with only 11 games left, but if Inter Miami wants to make a historic run from the bottom of the Eastern Conference into a playoff position, Messi must continue to score goals like he did in the Leagues Cup.
Messi has not yet participated in an MLS match, despite the fact that he helped Inter Miami win the Leagues Cup with 10 goals in seven games. On August 26, Inter Miami will travel to play the New York Red Bulls to kick off his league schedule.
MLS Golden Boot winners in the past:
Prior to 2005, Major League Soccer awarded its Scoring Champion based on a point system, but after that year they have switched to a more conventional Golden Boot for the league’s best scorer.
