If there’s one thing we can shout from the rooftops here at Backheeled, it’s this: we watch the games.
Now that Saturday’s Decision Day brought the 2026 MLS regular season to a close and locked the playoff field into place (congratulations to Portland, Seattle, and Salt Lake and commiserations to Minnesota, the Galaxy, and Colorado), we’re ready to look back on an entire season’s worth of watching and writing about MLS games. Backheeled’s regular MLS writers – Joe Lowery, Ben Wright, and Andrew Clausen – are here to share their official end-of-year award ballots.
Here’s who earned votes from our team in 2026.
MVP
Joe Lowery: When the votes are tallied, Lionel Messi will become the first player in MLS history to win the league’s MVP award on three separate occasions. Last year, he became the second player to win multiple MVP awards, alongside Preki. This year, he’ll deservedly stand alone with the most MVP titles in league history: Messi won this year’s Golden Boot, posted the most goal contributions by a country mile, and managed to squeeze propelling Argentina to the World Cup final between two breathtakingly dominant halves of an MLS campaign. The dude is 39. He’ll win as many MLS MVPs as the number of seasons he plays before he retires.
Ben Wright: There are a few players who I think have cases here – see: Hany Mukhtar, Petar Musa, Carles Gil – but no one is touching Messi this year. He’s putting up historic numbers and will go into the playoffs with a solid chance of winning it all.
Andrew Clausen: As much as I like to be contrarian, it’s obviously Messi. The dude is putting up numbers we’ve never seen in this league. That said, I think Antoine Griezmann deserves a mention. 21 goal contributions in 1,600 minutes all while carrying one of the worst defensive outfits MLS has literally ever seen to a playoff place is insane. He hasn’t had enough playing time (and he’s not good enough) to top the Argentine, but Griezmann sure is worth mentioning.
Coach of the Year
Lowery: This was, hands down, the hardest choice on the ballot for me with BJ Callaghan, Jesper Sorensen, and Yoann Damet all looking like worthy winners from where I sit. Tie goes to the coach of the record-breaking team, I guess, because I cast my vote for Callaghan. He’s made so many excellent decisions since taking charge of Nashville (like switching to a two-forward front to maximize Sam Surridge) and he’s developed young players (see: Reed Baker-Whiting and Matthew Corcoran). Plus, he’s savvy enough to make small tweaks from game to game to nullify Nashville’s opponents.
