A History of the Superstars Who Came to MLS Before Lionel Messi

I’ll never forget that luxuriant poof of hair. There it was: that same ball of curly, blond coils I’d seen on World Cup broadcasts in 1994 now flopping around on a Major League Soccer pitch. Carlos Valderrama had arrived. Maybe a similar awe arose for others upon seeing Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, or Didier Drogba on North American soil. For a close friend of mine, nothing tops the memory of throwing projectiles at David Beckham while he set up a corner kick—not the most honorable anecdote, but one that speaks to Beckham’s status as the Harry Styles of his day.

Lionel Messi is one of a kind, but within the annals of MLS, he’s not entirely unique. In a sense, he represents a new evolution in a long-standing tradition. Messi, who was officially introduced as a member of Inter Miami this Sunday at the rain-soaked DRV PNK Stadium, is the latest and greatest in a long line of legendary players trotted out before American viewers. Ever since MLS launched in 1996, the league has consistently attracted aging superstars seeking a new adventure beyond the sport’s traditional European power centers. It’s a lucrative proposition for both players and the league; players get to expand their footprint in the celebrity-obsessed U.S. market, while the league gets to milk these brand-name talents for attention and credibility. Beckham, who is part of Inter’s ownership group and helped orchestrate Messi’s signing, knows about this give-and-take better than anyone.

As MLS has matured, this pattern has become increasingly controversial among those invested in the league’s success. “We want our story to be about young players who are coming here at the earliest stages in their career, or in the prime of their careers, and making our league their league of choice,” MLS commissioner Don Garber told The Athletic last year. With an apparent note of bitterness, Garber continued, “We don’t need to bring in a big-name player at the end of their career because they’ve decided they’d like to retire in MLS.”

Whenever a star near the end of their career shows up in America, they have to deal with the perception that they’re easing into quasi-retirement. The league, despite an escalating quality of play and professionalism, remains a step down from soccer’s elite tier. But the mere fact that Messi’s former team, FC Barcelona, was begging for him to return rather than choose Miami is a reminder that the man has not yet fallen off in any significant way. It was just seven months ago that Messi, almost certainly the most successful player in club soccer history, led Argentina to victory at the men’s World Cup, winning the Golden Ball as the tournament’s most valuable player and vanquishing any remaining doubts about his legacy. And even if his talent was withering, he’s Leo Messi. Everywhere he goes in Miami—to an Italian restaurant, to the supermarket—people are freaking out. Messi is not just a peerless footballer but a demigod-level global celebrity: the second-most followed human being on Instagram after longtime rival Cristiano Ronaldo, capable of inciting a riot in his home country by simply going out to dinner. No amount of hand-wringing about the folly of importing aging superstars was going to stop MLS power brokers from inking a deal with the GOAT.

Like it or not, titans in their twilight have been a mainstay of MLS from the beginning, and for the most part they’ve served their intended purpose: selling tickets and elevating the league’s profile both at home and abroad. Frankly, Messi might never have made it to MLS if not for the trailblazers who came before him. Ahead of his reported Inter Miami debut this Friday in a Leagues Cup match against Mexico’s Cruz Azul, let’s look back on some of the most noteworthy stars to make the jump to MLS.

Carlos Valderrama (1996-2002)

It wasn’t just that he had a look: the gigantic curly afro, rasta-inspired bracelets, dangling earrings, and formidable mustache. Valderrama also had a reputation as a genius creative playmaker in central midfield, a guy who could make magic happen without seeming to exert himself at all. He was captaining Colombia’s national team and coming off of two domestic championships in three years with Atlético Junior when he signed with a fledgling Major League Soccer in December 1995, “instantly becoming the league’s marquee player.”

Valderrama lived up to the hype. In 1996, “El Pibe” led the Tampa Bay Mutiny to the best record in MLS and won the inaugural MVP award. Two years later he moved south to join the Miami Fusion, an expansion team, before returning to Tampa in 1999 and dishing out a league-record 26 assists. When he retired in 2002 after a brief stint with Colorado, Valderrama had never won an MLS Cup but had played an invaluable role in launching the league.

Hristo Stoichkov (2000-2003)

Stoichkov, an absolute killer within sniffing distance of the goal, was arguably a more accomplished player than Valderrama. But unlike Valderrama, he was beginning to fall off when he arrived in MLS. A powerhouse for Barcelona in the ’90s, the Bulgarian striker arguably peaked in 1994, when he won the Ballon d’Or as the world’s best player after leading Bulgaria to the World Cup semifinals (he also won the Golden Boot with a tournament-leading six goals). But Stoichkov’s on-field production for the Chicago Fire was nothing special, and he lacked crossover star power to snag the attention of America’s cranky sports talk radio types. Although his goal in the final helped Chicago win the U.S. Open Cup domestic tournament in 2000, it’s hard to say he really moved the needle.

David Beckham (2007-2012)

When Beckham showed up, every MLS team’s marketing department had it easy at least one week out of the year when they played the Los Angeles Galaxy. Beckham wasn’t necessarily the best player on England’s national team, which he’d just spent six years captaining, or Real Madrid, where he played immediately prior to his U.S. move. Yet thanks to his movie-star looks, his pop-star wife, some film called Bend It Like Beckham, and a global brand shaped by mega-manager Simon Fuller, the guy’s galactic fame had penetrated into American culture.

Even soccer haters knew Becks joining the LA Galaxy was a big deal. His mere presence was enough to sell out stadiums in markets where attendance had long been a struggle. Millions abroad suddenly had a reason to keep up with MLS, too. Whether all those people would actually catch Beckham in action was always an open question; injuries plagued much of his time with the Galaxy, and he missed large chunks of multiple seasons on loan to AC Milan. But Beckham ultimately contributed to some huge moments for the Galaxy, as the team prevailed in the MLS Cup in 2011 and 2012. He went out on top of MLS and left behind a league on the rise.

Thierry Henry (2010-2014)

Henry is not Beckham-famous in America, but for any U.S. observers who were following the global game even a little bit, his signing with the New York Red Bulls was thrilling. Here was a World Cup champion with France, the shining star of a disgustingly stacked early 2000s Arsenal squad, and possibly the greatest player in Premier League history suiting up for a team that had once been known as the “New York/New Jersey MetroStars.” After fading a bit at Barcelona alongside a young Leo Messi, Henry brought a tenacious spirit to MLS. Though MLS Cups eluded him, Henry led the Red Bulls franchise to its first significant hardware, the 2013 Supporters’ Shield. The Olimpico he scored with New York was unforgettable, and not just because it came against my hometown Columbus Crew.

Robbie Keane (2011-2016)

It bears mentioning that Keane, the prolific and well-traveled Premier League striker, was a more important contributor to the Galaxy’s Beckham-era MLS Cup wins than Beckham—and that he continued to shred MLS long after Beckham dipped. Keane was runner-up in the 2013 MVP race and won the award in 2014. That year the Irishman also won MLS Cup MVP honors as the Galaxy again soared to a championship. American sports fans were not going out of their way to see Keane in action, but maybe they should have been.

Kaká (2015-2017)

When ranking the resumés of all players who’ve ever suited up in MLS, Kaká would be close to the top: he’s a World Cup champion, UEFA Champions League champion, Ballon d’Or winner, and has one of those cool one-name Brazilian soccer monikers. But the guy couldn’t even get Orlando City SC into the playoffs three years in a row. It was so underwhelming that I started wondering if we should revoke his mononym and revert him to Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite.

David Villa (2015-2018)

A phenomenal striker with a well-rounded game, Villa was a member of intersecting dynasties on the club and international level. In the late aughts and early 2010s, his Spain and FC Barcelona teams tiki-taka’d their way to delicate, suffocating dominance. Then he signed up to become the face of expansion side New York City FC. In his 2016 MVP campaign and beyond, Villa consistently outshined teammates Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo, fellow icons whose transition to MLS was not quite as smooth. Villa’s impact in America may not have been as seismic as Beckham and his old Barça teammate Messi, but it was a textbook example of a superstar-to-MLS move done right.

Didier Drogba (2015-2016)

Drogba, a gutsy and physical striker from Côte d’Ivoire who helped Chelsea win the Premier League and UEFA Champions League, was the classic case of a legendary player dropping into MLS without much gas left in the tank. He hit the ground running in 2015 with 11 goals in 11 games but declined significantly in 2016, even getting benched during Montréal’s playoff run. One could make the case that “Drogba” the song made more of an impact in North America than Drogba the player.

Sebastian Giovinco (2015-2018)

This was an instance of a star ascending to more spectacular heights of international renown upon transferring to MLS. Giovinco had earned the world’s respect while bouncing around Italy’s Serie A, enough so that his contract with Toronto FC made him the highest-paid player in MLS. It was nonetheless startling when the Italian unleashed a creative firestorm that earned him MVP honors in his first year and a domestic treble (MLS Cup, Supporters’ Shield, and Canadian Championship) in 2017. His ascent in MLS marked a time when the league’s brightest stars were elite talents in their prime like Diego Valeri and Josef Martínez, not esteemed old-timers beginning to dim out.

Steven Gerrard (2015-2016) and Ashley Cole (2016-2018)

These two illustrious English players never amounted to much in MLS. Gerrard, a UCL-winning mainstay with Liverpool and a three-time World Cup veteran for England, struggled with the long distances and varied climates between MLS cities. Cole was a defensive rock for Arsenal (where he was part of the undefeated 2003-04 squad), Chelsea (where he won the Champions League, among other honors), and England (where he’s one of the most-capped defenders of all time). In L.A., he was involved with some of the Galaxy’s worst seasons, including a last-place finish in 2017 and another playoff miss under his captaincy in 2018.

Bastian Schweinsteiger (2017-2019)

What a career! Schweinsteiger won a World Cup with Germany and a UEFA Champions League title with Bayern Munich, among many, many Bundesliga championships. Even a Kaká-like flop in MLS couldn’t have ruined his reputation. He didn’t quite set the league aflame, but Schweinsteiger oversaw a low-key renaissance for the Chicago Fire, leading them back to the playoffs for the first time in half a decade. He was also very kind when a hapless reporter asked him if he could help Chicago win a World Cup.

Wayne Rooney (2018-2019)

Rooney, a rugged bulldog of a forward, blossomed at Manchester United not long after Beckham departed. But they overlapped on the English national team long enough to be part of the same golden generation that fell frustratingly short of international glory. Like Beckham, Rooney had no such trouble on the club level, amassing astronomical goal totals and winning a UEFA Champions League title to go along with all his five Premier League crowns. Seeing him in a D.C. United kit was almost surreal, but like so many of the league’s imported superstars in this era, his track record in MLS was strictly decent. If Rooney wants to lead D.C. to the promised land, he’ll have to do it as manager, the role he’s inhabited since last summer.

Zlatan Ibrahimović (2018-2019)

In the third season of Ted Lasso, self-impressed superstar Zava joins plucky underdogs AFC Richmond and fundamentally alters the team’s chemistry. The plotline was informed by The Beckham Experiment, the late, great soccer journalist Grant Wahl’s book about Beckham joining the LA Galaxy. But the character of Zava was unmistakably based on Ibrahimović, the human highlight reel who announced his signing to the Galaxy with a newspaper ad that read, “Dear Los Angeles, you’re welcome.”

Zlatan kicked off his career in Hollywood in movie-script fashion by scoring a stunning 45-yard volley against LAFC. He went on to tally a whopping 52 goals in 56 games with the Galaxy, many of them similarly electric. The team didn’t win a single bit of hardware on his watch, but few could argue when he announced his departure with a tweet that began, “I came. I saw. I conquered.”

Javier “Chicharito” Hernández (2020-present)

The Galaxy never lack for marquee players. The latest, Mexican striker Chicharito, played at top European clubs like Manchester United while becoming El Tri’s all-time leader in international goals. His time in Los Angeles has been disrupted by factors global (the pandemic that upended his first MLS season) and personal (the torn ACL that ended his 2023 campaign). But at a time when the Galaxy have been overshadowed by newcomers LAFC, the league’s reigning champs, having one of Mexico’s most beloved sons on the roster is good business in Southern California.

Gareth Bale (2022)

Bale, the Tottenham and Real Madrid star and Welsh icon, skated into LAFC halfway through last season, barely played during a Supporters’ Shield-winning campaign, and entered the MLS Cup final just in time to tie the match with the latest goal in MLS playoff history. It was an extreme version of the old narrative about MLS as a retirement pasture—a nice little exclamation point on a storied career. With Messi, that kind of punctuation will not suffice; the watching world will be expecting whole new chapters.

Chris DeVille is managing editor at Stereogum and a lifelong Ohioan. He is annoyed that Inter Miami already played in Columbus this year.