Inter Miami's Messi nominated for Ballon d'Or 2023
Inter Miami CF superstar Lionel Messi is one step closer to an eighth Ballon d'Or award. The Argentine forward was part of the 30-player shortlist announced Wednesday. The winner will be announced on Oct. 30 in Paris. The annual award recognizes the world's best male soccer player in the 2022–23 season.
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It’s a Thursday. It’s September. It’s an international break. It’s pretty quiet around here. Why don’t we sit back and rank some goals?
Here are the best AT&T 5G Goal of the Matchday winners (so far).
**Matchday 15 | Eduard Löwen - St. Louis CITY SC**
Goalology Score: 10/1000
This was absolutely not a shot lol
Don’t worry, Löwen gets redemption on this list a bit later.
**Matchday 6 | Federico Bernardeschi - Toronto FC**
Goalology Score: 15/1000
Also not a shot. However, I’m willing to suspend disbelief just a little bit more here and consider that maybe, just maybe, Bernardeschi meant to score this Olimpico on purpose. Kind of seems a bit lucky though. I’m sure that good fortune only continued for Toronto here on out...
**Matchday 9 |** **Karol Swiderski - Charlotte FC**
Goalology Score: 95/1000
This is…uh…just a normal goal. I mean, I couldn’t do it. But…
Fan votes are fun.
**Matchday 11 | Claudio Bravo - Portland Timbers**
Goalology Score: 103/1000
This is definitely one of the goals scored from outside the box this year.
**Matchday 21 | Justen Glad - Real Salt Lake**
Goalology Score: 105/1000
Not going to lie, my brain kind of broke when I saw Justen Glad on the list. It made a little more sense, though, when I remembered this one was more about the stakes of the goal than the quality of the goal itself. Then again, the stakes weren’t exactly sky-high. Still, it’s a good goal to earn a late draw.
**Matchday 12 | Evander - Portland Timbers**
Goalology Score: 245/1000
Pretty turn at the top of the box. Decent finish into the bottom left corner. A good goal. That’s kind of all there is to say here.
**Matchday 24 | Riqui Puig - LA Galaxy**
Goalology Score: 249/1000
Puig. Top of the box. Screamer. It’s a staple of the genre for a reason.
**Matchday 8 | Tyler Boyd - LA Galaxy**
Goalology Score: 251/1000
Boyd threw a 100 MPH fastball from distance. But the keeper got a hand on it. In my opinion, that hurts his score here. We’ll catch up with Boyd a little later though.
**Matchday 7 | Josh Atencio - Seattle Sounders**
Goalology Score: 253/1000
The 21-year-old thumped this one past my favorite for Goalkeeper of the Year, Roman Burki, as Seattle rolled to a huge win over St. Louis. It’s probably the most fun Seattle have had all year.
**Matchday 16 | Memo Rodríguez - LA Galaxy**
Goalology Score: 256/1000
It’s a good hit from distance but I’ll be real here and say Miguel Berry got totally robbed this week. Didn’t Atlanta folks used to be good at fan polls?
**Matchday 17 | Luciano Acosta - FC Cincinnati**
Goalology Score: 301/1000
Lucho doing Lucho things. It’s impressive to bring down a long diagonal the way he did and then finish in traffic. It’s also not even in the top 100 impressive Lucho things this season.
**Matchday 5 | João Klauss - St. Louis CITY SC**
Goalology Score: 325/1000
We’ve got a pretty ruthless half-volley from Klauss here. It’s a good reminder of just how scary St. Louis can be when he’s healthy. I’ve missed him.
**Matchday 29 | Riqui Puig - LA Galaxy**
Goalology Score: 334/1000
Puig took the ball at midfield, no one bothered to stop him from that point and he curled his shot into the bottom right corner. Impressive. But maybe a bit run-of-the-mill compared to other goals on this list. Which is why we’re about to take a big leap in scores for no real reason other than I felt like it.
**Matchday 3 | Jon Gallagher - Austin FC**
Goalology Score: 501/1000
It’s not just that Gallagher blew past RSL’s defense and hit a screamer. It’s that he blew past RSL’s defense and hit a screamer that went in off the underside of the crossbar. That’s like 150 bonus points purely for aesthetic purposes, and then like 50 more because he’s a fullback.
**Matchday 27 | Samuel Adeniran - St. Louis CITY SC**
Goalology Score: 621/1000
People make goals so stressful sometimes. They get out there and sprint and juke and try to kick the ball as hard as they can. It’s so extra. Calm down. Take a page from Samuel Adeniran’s book and just stroll into the box and flick the ball with the outside of your left foot with the power and accuracy to have it blow by one of the league’s best keepers from a tight angle. Easy.
**Matchday 31 | Giorgos Giakoumakis - Atlanta United**
Goalology Score: 691/1000
GG takes the ball off his chest at full sprint here and then skies it over the top of the keeper to set up a tap-in for himself once it lands about 20 seconds later. It’s beautiful in Giakoumakis’ “hunts small game with a bazooka” way of going about things.
**Matchday 23 | Tyler Boyd - LA Galaxy**
Goalology Score: 735/1000
There are other curlers from distance in this list, but Boyd pulled off one of the best of the bunch here. He’s basically in the corner of the 18-yard box and just rips it anyway. Even better, he’s in front of the largest crowd in MLS history. He’s at the Rose Bowl, it’s July 4, and it’s El Trafico. Stakes and setting matter in important lists like these.
**Matchday 26 | Eduard Löwen - St. Louis CITY SC**
Goalology Score: 792/1000
We at The Daily Kickoff are of the belief that the best free kicks are the free kicks where the ball goes right where an overeager keeper used to be. It reminds us that, as always, the lesson is “never try.” Thank you, Eduard Löwen
**Matchday 28 | Lionel Messi - Inter Miami**
Goalology Score: 810/1000
The goal itself is just a tap-in. But my goodness, Lionel Messi earned it. His outside-of-the-foot pass to Benjamin Cremaschi impressed the Red Bulls so much that they all stopped to appreciate it for a moment as Messi moved toward goal. To be fair, holy smokes, how did he even see that? Who does that? It’s easily one of the best team goals of the season.
**Matchday 10 | Christian Benteke - D.C. United**
Goalology Score: 819/1000
Big man bike? Big man bike.
It’s not even the best bike of Benteke’s career, but it still took Charlotte by surprise to see him hurtling through the air. You can almost see them shift from “WOW LOOK AT THAT HE’S FLYING” to “OH NO!” in real-time.
**Matchday 22 | Thiago Almada - Atlanta United**
Goalology Score: 821/1000
This isn’t even Almada’s best goal on the list, but it is the only goal on that involves banking the ball off a free-kick wall and immediately making up for it with an absurd half-volley that like five humans in the world could have kicked at full force without watching it sail into the last row of the stadium. He basically alley-ooped a 360-degree windmill dunk off the backboard to himself.
**Matchday 1 | Thiago Almada - Atlanta United**
Goalology Score: 855/100
This is also not Almada’s best goal on the list. But it is the most game-winningest. Almada got the Goal of the Year competition started off with a bang thanks to his stoppage-time, buzzer beating free-kick winner against San Jose.
**Matchday 25 | Miguel Trauco - San Jose Earthquakes**
Goalology Score: 873/100
This is one of those goals that you see teams try across the sport hundreds of times every year. It works once a year. San Jose left back Miguel Trauco happened to be that once. Behold: A volley from the top of the box off a corner that actually goes in.
**Matchday 2 | Robert Taylor - Inter Miami**
Goalology Score: 899/1000
Before he became famous, Robert Taylor was just hanging around MLS, intercepting passes from teammates that weren’t even meant for him, taking them off his chest, and sending home ridiculous volleys from outside the box against one of the league’s all-time great keepers. Stars, man. They’re just like us.
**Matchday 19 | Pablo Ruiz - Real Salt Lake**
Goalology Score: 901/100
Poor Tyler Miller, man. A couple of weeks after D.C. head coach Wayne Rooney suggested publicly that Miller’s sweeper-keeper positioning meant someone would probably beat him from distance soon, Pablo Ruiz took it to heart. Ruiz took the ball 68.24 yards away from goal and casually placed into the side netting. Somehow, this isn’t even the best goal from midfield this season. It wasn’t even the best goal from midfield that month. What a league.
**Matchday 4 | Thiago Almada - Atlanta United**
Goalology Score: 919/100
I had a perfect angle to see this one in person. I remember mumbling to myself afterward, “Was this the coolest thing I’ve seen in my life?” And then I got kind of sad thinking that, perhaps, I would never see anything in person quite so impressive again. So, for being good enough to cause an existential crisis, we’ve ranked this as one of the best goals of the year.
**Matchday 20 | José Martinez - Philadelphia Union**
Goalology Score: 935/1000
José Martinez got 71.8% of the fan vote for his wild, air-bending half-volley from 30-plus yards that gave Philadelphia a late draw against Orlando. 71.8%. Of a fan vote. For José Martinez. Do you know how many people around the league despise this man for what he’s done to their team as one of the league’s best defensive midfielders? And he still got 71.8%. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Anyway, Martinez tried this exact shot from distance like 800 times before and it finally went in. I look forward to when it works again in about five years or so.
**Matchday 18 | Lucas Zelarayán - Columbus Crew**
Goalology Score: 955/1000
From an aesthetic standpoint, there have been better goals this year. But it’s very simple. Don’t overthink it. When you score from midfield in the final seconds of stoppage time to win the game you’ve almost certainly scored the best goal of the season. That’s just how things work.
Columbus Crew waive midfielder Díaz: The Columbus Crew have waived midfielder Luis Díaz. The 24-year-old Costa Rican international, who joined Columbus as a Young Designated Player in 2019 from C.S. Herediano, departs after posting six goals and 14 assists over 83 regular-season games (51 starts).
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- Larry Henry Jr. picked out 10 MLS NEXT Pro standouts working towards first-team call-ups.
Good luck out there. Bring pizza.
