2026 MLS Season: The five best players through matchday 5

Analysis

We’re five matches into the 2026 MLS season, which provides a solid sample size to use to evaluate players.

Four teams remain unbeaten, while two others are without a win.

There are also a few surprise names near the top of the scoring charts, which adds further intrigue to the league.

Here, with five matches played, are the five best players of the 2026 season so far.

Sam Surridge - Nashville SC

Sam Surridge has seven goals in four matches, including a hat trick in Saturday’s 5-0 win over Orlando City.

Surridge also scored braces against the New England Revolution and Minnesota United.

Nashville is currently atop the Eastern Conference with 13 points, and Surridge has scored just over half the team’s 13 MLS goals.

After a 25-goal season in MLS last year, the ex-Nottingham Forest man is continuing where he left off.

Lionel Messi - Inter Miami CF

Lionel Messi has missed two of his club’s MLS matches, but he still has four goals in as many appearances.

He has also created eight chances, and he led his team to three wins after a disappointing 3-0 defeat to Los Angeles FC in the season-opening match.

All three wins were on the road, and in the Orlando match, especially, he showed his ability to dominate matches in a variety of ways with two goals, three chances created, 4/8 shots on target, and 5/6 accurate long passes.

Anders Dreyer - San Diego FC

Anders Dreyer was the key to his club finishing atop the Western Conference in its inaugural MLS season, scoring 23 goals with 17 assists in 39 appearances (including playoffs).

The Denmark international, like the other players on this list, has continued where he left off from last season. With three goals and three assists, he has San Diego near the top of the West once again.

The only match he has not had a goal contribution in was when he came off the bench in a 3-3 draw with FC Dallas. He contributed two assists in the season-opening game, a 5-0 win over CF Montreal, and he followed it with a goal and an assist in a 2-0 victory over St. Louis City.

Julian Hall - New York Red Bulls

With four goals in five appearances, 17-year-old Julian Hall has been arguably the biggest story of the MLS season so far.

Having earned the trust of newly-appointed New York Red Bulls manager Michael Bradley when the two overlapped with the reserve team, Hall has already equalled his goal tally from the last two seasons combined, and he appeared in 43 matches in that span.

Hall has played all but eight of the possible MLS minutes this season, and he is part of a youth movement that includes 16-year-old Adri Mehmeti and 17-year-old Matthew Dos Santos.

Hugo Lloris - Los Angeles FC

LAFC is undefeated and has yet to concede a goal, and while the entire team deserves credit for its start to the season in the post-Steve Cherundolo era, goalkeeper Hugo Lloris deserves the most credit.

Lloris has saved the first 16 shots on target that he has faced this season. Those shots have been worth 3.33 Expected Goals on Target (xG based on the percentage of how likely the shot is to hit the back of the net based on where it is when it reaches the target, rather than where the shot was taken from).

The French World Cup-winner and LAFC captain has been integral to his team’s success this season and looks to be at his best at 39 years old.

The FootballTransfers app

Check out FootballTransfers' new app for all of football's big storylines, transfer rumours and exclusive news in one convenient place directly on your mobile device.

The FootballTransfers app is available in the Apple App Store. Download here:

•App Store