{"id":50288,"date":"2026-11-08T09:10:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T07:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=50288"},"modified":"2026-11-08T09:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T07:10:30","slug":"messi-becomes-first-to-win-mls-golden-boot-in-consecutive-seasons","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/messi-becomes-first-to-win-mls-golden-boot-in-consecutive-seasons\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi becomes first to win MLS Golden Boot in consecutive seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inter Miami&#8217;s Lionel Messi became the first \u200bto win MLS&#8217; Golden Boot \u200cin back-to-back seasons, the league said on Saturday, the final day \u200bof the regular season.<\/p>\n<p>Messi \u200bscored a league-high 26 goals across \u206031 matches, while FC \u200bDallas forward Petar Musa followed with \u200b22 goals and Nashville SC&#8217;s Sam Surridge recorded 21.<\/p>\n<p>He had 29 goals \u200bthe previous season, becoming the \u200bsecond in league history to score at \u200cleast \u206025 times in back-to-back years.<\/p>\n<p>The 39-year-old Argentine retired from international football earlier this year after \u200b21 \u200byears but \u2060signed a contract extension with the MLS club \u200bthrough 2028 in October.<\/p>\n<p>The \u200bMLS \u2060Cup Playoffs begin on November 19. Inter Miami finished the \u2060regular \u200bseason second in \u200bthe Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14870,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-50288","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Inter Miami finished the \u2060regular \u200bseason second in \u200bthe Eastern Conference.","published_date":"","news_description":"Inter Miami finished the \u2060regular \u200bseason second in \u200bthe Eastern Conference.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50290,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50288\/revisions\/50290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=50288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}