MLS weekend wrap: teenagers are taking over, and Messi goes full Florida Man | MLS

EEven before David Beckham left Madrid for Los Angeles, MLS had a reputation as a “retirement league.” This notion is well known in joke circles. It’s tired, and also at least somewhat true.

Robbie Keane. Kaka. David Villa. Andrea Pirlo. Didier Drogba. Wayne Rooney. Zlatan Ibrahimovic. All of them – and many others – made an end-of-career stopover in the United States. Today, three of the 11 players named to the Fifa Dream Team after the 2014 World Cup play in the championship: Lionel Messi (Inter Miami), Thomas Müller (Vancouver Whitecaps) and James Rodríguez (Minnesota United). When Son Heung-min (33) arrived in Los Angeles after his decade at Tottenham, he reunited with his long-time Spurs teammate Hugo Lloris (39) and secured derby days against LA Galaxy’s Marco Reus (36).

However, none of these players are bellwethers. If that distinction belongs to anyone, it might be 17-year-old Red Bull New York starlet Julian Hall; currently tied atop the MLS Golden Boot standings, and an invaluable part of one of the feel-good stories from earlier this season.

Hall has been electric through the first two weeks, which also happens to be the first two weeks of Michael Bradley’s high-profile managerial career. Hall’s breakthrough is all the more impressive because it was far from certain that he would start. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting set a new career high with 17 goals for the Red Bulls in 2025, the first time he has scored more than 10 times in the league in a season. Now, just three weeks shy of his 37th birthday, he’s a valuable practice foil and mentor to Hall and others on a team full of standout teenagers — Hall’s goal against the New England Revolution this weekend was assisted by 16-year-old Adri Mehmeti, while 17-year-old Matthew Dos Santos started and provided the initial ball.

The Red Bulls were among the first MLS teams to sustainably develop young talent through their academy. Tyler Adams remains the program’s star graduate, now a key midfield anchor for Bournemouth. Since being sold in 2018, New York has often seemed preoccupied with extending its record 15-year playoff-qualifying streak, with fewer and fewer young talents breaking through.

Last year, that playoff streak was broken and the team has now returned to its roots. Bradley was elevated to head coach after half a season at the helm of their MLS affiliate Next Pro, guiding Red Bulls II to the league title with an offensive-minded system.

It’s no wonder that Hall (who could only play afternoon games as a 15-year-old rookie due to New Jersey labor laws) and Mehmeti, another member of last year’s Next Pro champions, are the immediate mainstays of Bradley’s lineups. Mehmeti in particular benefited from the off-season departure of midfielders Peter Stroud and Daniel Edelman.

Selling successful academy graduates to reinvest in the roster is well established in other leagues, and it has finally become common in MLS. The Seattle Sounders have recently established themselves as specialists in midfield development, selling 20-year-old Obed Vargas to Atlético Madrid this winter, then developing a succession plan that includes giving more minutes to another academy product, 18-year-old Snyder Brunell. Vargas’ emergence a few years ago allowed Seattle to sign another pair of homegrown players: Danny Leyva (now with Necaxa in Liga MX) and Josh Atencio (Colorado regular).

MLS has helped encourage some of these efforts. Last winter, the league finally allowed teams to sell players to other MLS clubs for cash, rather than trading assets or players in accordance with American sports customs. This winter, the league loosened restrictions on interleague loans to increase opportunities for cheap squad fillers and loan-to-buy flyers.

Adams, along with former Vancouver star Alphonso Davies, helped the world discover the talent that was beginning to emerge in MLS academies. Their successes in Europe ultimately helped normalize the MLS as a source of relatively inexpensive, high-potential prospects.

This success extends beyond the U21 player pool. In the same winter that saw Adams and Davies leave their boyhood clubs, Atlanta United sold Miguel Almirón to Newcastle. Nowadays, more and more players with a profile closer to the Paraguayan have used MLS as a vital step in their career. Taty Castellanos (formerly of New York City FC) has quickly become a crucial striker for West Ham, while Thiago Almada (Atlanta) is seeing more starts in his first year with Atléti. Villarreal has a growing pocket of former MLS talent, led by Tajon Buchanan (New England), Tani Oluwaseyi (Minnesota) and Alex Freeman (Orlando). Patrick Agyemang (Charlotte) and Aidan Morris (Columbus) are key regulars for the two Championship sides vying for promotion.

This season, however, has so far been all about the teens. So if it’s a retirement league, then at the very least, there’s a mentorship program associated with it. Stars still help MLS teams stand out in a crowded sports and entertainment market, but it’s the league’s development efforts that allow it to climb the global hierarchy.

Messi is a Florida man

If the influx of teenage stars doesn’t make you rethink the “retirement league” trope, then perhaps the recent actions of one of the league’s oldest players will. Messi turns 39 this summer, but he showed Sunday night in a 4-2 win over Miami’s intrastate rivals Orlando City that he’s no less motivated (and increasingly temperamental) as the third anniversary of his arrival in MLS approaches. Even though it’s not a Champions League or a World Cup, there are still many things that come to mind.

Last week, that meant suffering a 3-0 loss to Los Angeles FC and then facing the referees in the tunnel (Messi avoided suspension, of course). On Thursday, that meant taking part in a rare mid-week, mid-season friendly in Puerto Rico, with both teams dressed in black, which saw him sign the jersey of one pitch invader and pose for a selfie with another before a third dragged him to the ground.

Messi looked little more than perplexed in this instance, but Sunday was a different story. Trailing 2-0 at halftime in Orlando, Messi scored twice, scoring two and four from Miami’s second-half glut, opening his goal tally in 2026.

Through it all, it was clear that Messi still loves to liquidate a rival. On Sunday, that meant repeated interactions with the Orlando City bench, culminating in his offering to sign an autograph for an opposing coach to cap off another entertaining clash between the Florida foes.

Orlando will head south to Miami on May 2, hoping to recapture last year’s form that led to two three-goal wins over the Herons.

Klauss’ rule

Normally I wouldn’t write about a topic I covered just a week ago, but LA Galaxy forward João Klauss’ second goal in a 3-0 win over Charlotte FC is a prime example of one of MLS’s most enduring phenomena. Welcome to the Klauss Rule, in which a 6-foot-3, blond-haired, semi-bald Brazilian can go completely unnoticed by defenders while hanging around in possession.

In the 13th minute, Charlotte executed a simple throw-in right in their own half. Five seconds later, Klauss had a clear run on goal thanks to Andrew Privett’s carelessness.

Klauss made a name for himself in St Louis by scoring odd goals like this, lunging at giveaways for simple finishes. You’d think those chances would eventually dry up. Apparently not.