{"id":1770,"date":"2025-11-06T15:46:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:46:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:46:25","slug":"league-scoring-leader-messi-among-mls-best-xi-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/league-scoring-leader-messi-among-mls-best-xi-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"League scoring leader Messi among MLS Best XI squad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Lionel Messi, the leading goal scorer in MLS this season, was among players named to the league’s Best XI squad on Wednesday, a lineup including six first-time honorees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi<\/a>, who sparked Argentina <\/strong>to the 2022 World Cup crown, scored a league-high 29 goals for Inter Miami<\/strong> and also led MLS with 19 assists<\/strong>, becoming only the second player to top goals and assists in the same season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other forwards in the elite lineup included Los Angeles FC’s Denis Bouanga<\/strong> of Gabon and San Diego FC’s Anders Dreyer<\/strong> of Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minnesota United’s Dayne St. Clair<\/strong> was the Best XI goalkeeper<\/strong> with defenders including Vancouver’s Tristan Blackmon<\/strong>, Orlando City’s Alex Freeman<\/strong> and league-leading Philadelphia Union’s Jakob Glesnes<\/strong> of Norway and Kai Wagner<\/strong> of Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Midfielders on the squad included Vancouver’s Sebastian Berhalter<\/a>, Cincinnati’s Evander <\/strong>of Brazil and Seattle’s Cristian Roldan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canadian St. Clair<\/strong> was MLS Goalkeeper of the Year with Blackmon <\/strong>chosen MLS Defender of the Year and Dreyer named MLS Newcomer of the Year. Earning their first nods into the Best XI were St. Clair<\/strong>, Blackmon<\/strong>, Freeman<\/strong>, Roldan<\/strong>, Berhalter <\/strong>and Dreyer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi, the leading goal scorer in MLS this seaso […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1772,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions\/1772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}