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When Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and Luis Suárez arrived in South Beach, it sure felt like Inter Miami had just won the MLS lottery.
“We have (already) succeeded,” managing owner Jorge Mas said last summer, basking in the joy of his superstar-filled squad. “Expectations is something else, but we’ve succeeded. The fact that Lionel Messi is here, that Sergio Busquets is here and others are going to come, that we’ve opened new chapters for the sport in this country, we’ve succeeded.”
Commercial success isn’t the same thing as on-field success, however. As Inter Miami sped past the single-season MLS points record this season, winning the Supporters’ Shield and becoming the best regular season team ever, ESPN wondered: where does this 2024 Miami campaign rank among the best seasons in league history? And how does their first-round playoff exit at the hands of Atlanta United impact things?
Buckle up, folks, because it’s time to answer those questions.
The only MLS team to ever win a domestic treble, Toronto FC’s 2017 run checks all the boxes that you would expect the greatest MLS team of all time to check.
Oh Canada!@torontofc takes down Seattle 2-0 to win the @MLS Cup and cap off arguably the greatest season in league history. pic.twitter.com/vnCE3Pnl3Q
— ESPN (@espn) December 9, 2017
Trophies? Check. In 2017, Toronto picked up an MLS Cup victory, won the Supporters’ Shield, and came out on top in the Canadian Championship en route to etching their name in record books. Superstars? Double check. With Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore roaming the attack, opposing defenses had very few answers for Greg Vanney’s team. Elite depth and versatility in the squad? Toronto FC had that, too, with Michael Bradley, Mark Delgado, and Victor Vazquez roaming the center of the field. Tim Bezbatchenko, who would later become one of the architects of the modern day Columbus Crew, certainly wasn’t messing around up in the front office.
Toronto was excellent across all fronts, set the then-regular season points record by racking up 69 points, and featured one of the most well-rounded rosters in MLS history. Even before adding in the fact that its success in 2017 created the platform for a run to the Concacaf Champions League final in 2018, which featured wins over Liga MX giants Tigres and Club America, Toronto belongs on top of this list.
After Toronto’s treble-winning season, the rankings begin to get much murkier. Plenty of teams in MLS history have impressed en route to winning a pair of trophies in a single season, though none have gone about claiming those trophies quite like D.C. United in 1998.
That D.C. team wasn’t a slouch domestically, dominating the Eastern Conference in the regular season, finishing second in the Supporters’ Shield race, and appearing in MLS Cup. Still, it’s D.C. United’s ultra-rare claim to regional supremacy that sees them so high up this list. Winners of the Concacaf Champions League and Copa Interamericana, a competition that pitted the CCL and Copa Libertadores champions against each other, in 1998, D.C. United can boast of success across the Americas in a way that so few other MLS teams can.
By taking down Brazil’s Vasco da Gama over two legs, Bruce Arena’s team left a real impression. Top U.S. talents like Eddie Pope, Tony Sanneh, and John Harkes shined alongside Bolivian stars Marco Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno. Their third-straight double-winning season, it was 1998 that positioned D.C. United as something of a regional power.
3. LAFC, 2022
Few teams in MLS history have pieced together as much talent as the 2022 version of LAFC — and even fewer teams have watched as that talent turned into an MLS Cup win and a Supporters’ Shield victory. That was the story for LAFC in their first season under Steve Cherundolo when they bested the Philadelphia Union to claim both the playoff prize and the regular season crown.
Carlos Vela, though not at the height of his powers, was still a productive face of the team on the wing. Cristian Arango led the team in scoring, while a mixture of high-level MLS veterans like Ilie Sánchez and Ryan Hollingshead and promising young stars like José Cifuentes and Diego Palacios added real support. The midseason arrivals of Dénis Bouanga, though he wouldn’t unlock his full potential in black and gold until the following season, Giorgio Chiellini, and MLS Cup hero Gareth Bale reminded the rest of the league just how big a threat LAFC are at their best.
While Bob Bradley’s LAFC team in 2019 seemed to hit higher highs in the regular season, the 2022 edition earns its place on this list — and over its predecessor — thanks to their playoff triumph.
The season that kicked off a streak of three MLS Cup victories in four seasons, 2011 was the year the monkey finally climbed off the Galaxy’s — and David Beckham’s — back.
The LA Galaxy had won trophies before, of course. But after signing Beckham in 2007, they were still waiting on that MLS Cup breakthrough with their icon in tow. They’d come close in the two years prior to 2011. They fell in MLS Cup in 2009 in a penalty shootout against Real Salt Lake before losing the Western Conference final in 2010 at the hands of FC Dallas. In 2011, though? That was the year the dam broke.
With Beckham, Landon Donovan, Robbie Keane, and a suite of other club legends leading the way, the LA Galaxy finished top of the table in the regular season to win the Supporters’ Shield before a trio of wins earned them an ever-coveted chance to lift MLS Cup. There have been slightly more dominant Galaxy teams (2014 comes to mind, with their plus-32 goal differential), but 2011 met the moment. Finally.
5. Atlanta United, 2018
Though they came up two points short of the Supporters’ Shield in one of the all-time races in 2018, Atlanta United’s second-ever MLS season was one of the greatest in league history.
Both the Five Stripes and the New York Red Bulls topped the single-season points record set by Toronto FC one year earlier, with Atlanta landing at a would’ve-been record of 69 points while New York tipped them at 71. In the 2018 regular season, though, Atlanta United played the more dominant soccer. According to American Soccer Analysis, Tata Martino’s team led the league in expected goal differential that season and finished second in their entire database (which goes back to the 2013 season), only behind LAFC’s run in 2019.
While Atlanta missed out on the Shield, they had their revenge on the Red Bulls in the Eastern Conference final, beating them across two legs to book a date with the Portland Timbers in MLS Cup. In front of a roaring crowd at home, a squad led by Josef Martínez, Miguel Almirón, and Darlington Nagbe enjoyed a 2-0 win to cap off an elite campaign. Between their top-tier collection of talent, an incredible regular season, and a revenge-filled playoff run, few teams have put together a season quite like Atlanta United in 2018.
Honorable Mentions
At last, we’ve arrived at Inter Miami’s run in 2024.
After suffering the largest upset in MLS postseason history in the first round, it’s impossible to, in good conscience, push Miami into the top five. Are they the greatest regular season team of all time? Absolutely. Breaking the single-season points record speaks to that fact. But when it came to tournament play, Messi & Co. came up well short in the Concacaf Champions Cup, Leagues Cup, and the MLS Cup playoffs.
Ultimately, they end up at the top of the best regular season teams, along with the New England Revolution (2021), LAFC (2019), and the New York Red Bulls (2018).
Other multi-trophy teams like D.C. United in 1996, 1997, and 1999, the Chicago Fire in 1998, and LA Galaxy in early 2000s and early 2010s all have a right to feel aggrieved that they didn’t crack the top five. But none should feel more disappointed about the gap between preseason expectations and eventual results than this year’s Inter Miami team.