No Messi, no problem: MLS thumps Liga MX in All-Star Game

Another deserving player was Austin FC goalkeeper Brad Stuver, who started the match for MLS in front of a rapturous home crowd. Stuver, an American journeyman player who didn't get his MLS breakthrough until his early 30s, has made a real home for himself in Austin. He's been with the club since its first match in 2021 and is one of its most popular legends.

Liga MX didn't win, but it did field the most exciting player of the night: 16-year-old Tijuana star Gilberto Mora. Eagle-eyed viewers of this summer's Concacaf Gold Cup will remember that Mora played for the Mexican national team (and looked great while doing so), but this game felt like his true debut on the international stage — and what a debut it wound up being. 

His strike in the second half made him the youngest goal scorer in MLS All-Star Game history.

The game was meant to show off the best of MLS and Liga MX, but it wound up being overshadowed by two players who didn't bother to show: Jordi Alba and Lionel Messi. The Inter Miami players, named to the All-Star team in the first round of voting and long committed to attending the game, rescinded their participation hours before kickoff and skipped the spectacle altogether. 

MLS' rules here are simple and finite: Any healthy, un-injured player who skips the All-Star game must serve a one-game suspension during his next league fixture as a punishment. For Alba and Messi, that would mean missing Inter Miami's crucial Eastern Conference clash on Saturday with FC Cincinnati, its biggest rival in the title race.

MLS has a choice to make here. Will it will stick to its guns and enforce its own rule, thereby forcing Alba, Messi and Miami to face consequences for blowing off one of the leagues most beloved traditions? Or will it fold to Miami's wishes, as it so often does, and allow its stars to play against Cincinnati with the unearned advantage of an extra week of rest?

We'll find out soon enough. But we do know this: Regardless of what the league office decides, MLS has made a statement of its own. On a night when Miami wasn't interested in standing up for MLS, MLS proved it was more than capable of standing up for itself.

MLS will return to action on Friday for its final matchday before the league's summer break.